China Southern Airlines' Li Kun discusses Expansion plans

China Southern Airlines' COO, Mr. Li Kun, will be a headlining speaker at this week’s second annual North Asia Low Cost Airline Symposium being held at the brand-new Kitakyushu Airport, currently under construction in Southern Japan.

At the conference, slated for this Thursday and Friday, Mr. Li is expected to review the opening up of Chinese civil aviation as well as the growth and future goals of China Southern Airlines during his presentation, entitled, “Looking Into The Future … Coexistence of Opportunities & Challenges”.

The Second Annual North Asia Low Cost Airline Symposium on August 4-5, 2005 is convened by the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation and government bodies, aviation organizations, airlines, airports and suppliers will attend this landmark event which is expected to attract several hundred delegates.

According to Mr. Li, “During the next 15 years, the Chinese civil aviation industry will be faced with extraordinary opportunities and challenges including rapid growth of the national economy; China’s entry into the World Trade Organization; hosting the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing; the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai and the Asian Games in Guangzhou … as well as reforms and consolidation within the civil aviation industry.”

He added that, “as we strategically review the future aviation market, we can forecast that by the Year 2010, the air transportation business of China Southern Airlines will grow by an annual rate of 12%. To obtain this ambitious goal, we not only need to increase China Southern Airlines’ capacity and optimize the structure of our fleet but also tap into the potential of the current fleet and enhance the efficiency of aircraft utilization, so to drive the growth of traffic volume. For a considerably long period of time, the company will continue to pursue its current strategy of focusing on the domestic market.”

Outlining China Southern Airlines’ future plans, Mr Li. stated, “We plan to mainly introduce 150-seat and 200-seat aircraft, which are two major types of aircraft that China Southern Airlines now primarily operates on its domestic routes and some of its international routes. These two types of aircraft are suitable for the development of the company given their proper size and excellent economics. As we further consolidate and develop the domestic market, we will also steadily tap into the International marketplace. We will introduce a certain number of long-range wide-body passenger airplanes and freighters, including the superjumbo Airbus A380, so as to enhance our competitiveness in the International marketplace.”

“The types of aircraft, flight frequencies and schedules must be adjusted according to market demand and take advantage of our extensive network. In terms of route network construction, China Southern Airlines will continue to focus on domestic routes as it steadily taps into the International market, integrate its hubs with point-to-point routes, build up its Guangzhou and Beijing hubs and develop five major markets, namely, Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Shanghai.”

Mr. Li explained that, “At the same time, we will make more input into our routes in the eastern, southwestern and northwestern parts of China to improve our domestic route network. We will add more frequencies to our current International routes and plan to launch some new European and US routes with flights departing from our Beijing and Guangzhou hubs.

“We also plan to operate Airbus A380 aircraft on these trans-continental routes, establishing connections with our domestic flights through flight number integration. Since Urumqi is an ideal gateway that links China with the Middle Asia, West Asia, Middle East, Russia and countries of the former Soviet Union, we will take full advantage of its favorable geographical location to operate smaller aircraft on some international routes to these surrounding countries and gradually add flight frequency. We will continue to operate our routes to Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia, which are traditionally advantageous International routes for China Southern Airlines whose flights depart from Guangzhou, Dalian and Shenyang.”

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