BEIJING, May 5 (Xinhua) -- More Chinese airlines are launching new flights connecting the country's third, fourth-tier cities, where they see more business opportunities in air traffic than in major cities, China Daily reported Sunday.
Last year, passenger throughput growth of major cities' airports was less than 10 percent year on year, while the growth rates of third- and fourth-tier cities' airports were higher than 20 percent, the newspaper quoted data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China as saying.
"Many domestic airlines would like to launch flights to major cities like Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou, but flight times available in first- and second-tier cities are quite tight," the paper quoted Li Xiaojin, a professor of aviation economics at the Civil Aviation University of China in Tianjin. "By launching new flights at smaller cities, airlines may be able to realize net profits after two to three years of operations. In the beginning stage, there are usually some favorable policies in price and services. In the next few years, the flight times available at those smaller airports may become precious, as well."
Spring Airlines, a Shanghai-based Chinese budget carrier, for instance, has established three strategic bases since 2017, including airports in Yangzhou, Ningbo and Shantou, in addition to its main hub airports in Shanghai.
"For domestic flights, the newly added flight times at first-tier airports were quite scarce last year, and the scale expansion of second-tier airports was slowing down. Facing the bottlenecks of capacity increase, we need to build a more diverse and tridimensional flight network and hub structure," according to Zhang Wu'an, vice-president with Spring Airlines.
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