European airlines are increasing their capacity to Asia with China becoming a key focus in expectation of increased demand once the European Union becomes an approved destination for Chinese travellers from May.
Major carriers like Air France and Lufthansa are boosting capacity and adding new routes; British Airways is studying new routes to China following bilateral aviation talks.
Others like Austrian Airlines and Scandinavian Airlines are launching flights to China's commercial capital Shanghai.
Air France's latest summer schedule sees Asia gaining a buoyant 34 percent expansion compared to the previous SARS-hit summer. China is the key driver of the expansion in Asia with five-weekly flights to
GuangZhou launched in January. This will be increased to daily in summer with another three weekly flights coming through a code share with China Southern.
The increase in capacity to Beijing, initially announced last summer but postponed because of SARS, will become effective this year.
Following a provisional agreement signed between the UK and China for a substantial liberalisation of the bilateral Air Services Agreement (ASA), British carriers can now fly to an additional four Chinese cities and to increase their available flights to 15 per week from 10.
The deal also means that more than one carrier can operate flights to
Beijing and Shanghai.
This is very good news, Carol Cole, British Airways' manager International Relations told TravelWeekly. It is a major liberalisation of the market and there are
lots of opport-unities for us.
We are now reviewing our plans for China in light of the agreement and the new opportunities it offers although no deadlines have been set.
Lufthansa launched five weekly services between
GuangZhou and Munich that will become daily from April 1.
Later this month, it starts thrice weekly services between
Beijing and Munich and daily between
Shanghai and Munich from April 1.
Scandinavian Airlines is launching a new thrice-weekly service from
Shanghai to Copenhagen on March 28. It already operates daily Beijing-Copenhagen flights.
Finnair plans to fly daily from
Beijing to Helsinki in early April, up from the current five times per week, and increase its Shanghai-Helsinki flights from three to five weekly in June.
Austrian Airlines is also launching three flights a week from
Shanghai to Vienna from April 29.
While China remains the greatest opportunity, European carriers are also watching the rest of the region for potential.
Travel is a huge and growing market, and the Asian economies are currently strong, which augurs well for travel, so we believe that there is potential growth in all of our Asian markets, said a BA spokesman.
We are watching and analysing what is happening in the region, specifically in relation to intra-Asian travel and what the low-cost start-ups are doing.
Air France signed a code-share agreement with Vietnam Airlines that will see 11 weekly non-stop flights (12 beginning on June 27) between France and Vietnam.
Flights to Manila will be boosted from seven to daily via Bangkok.
In India, Air France will be offering five weekly flights to Mumbai, in addition to code-shared service on two of the seven flights operated by Delta Air Lines.
Japan, already served by 18 weekly flights to Tokyo, is likely to see an increase with the possibility of a code-share agreement with JAL for flights to Nagoya.
