Aviation authorities on the Chinese mainland and in Hong Kong sealed an air
services agreement yesterday, allowing 11 more cities on the mainland to be
linked with the Special Administrative Region by direct flights.
The General Administration of Civil Aviation of China, or CAAC, the
mainland's aviation industry regulator, said yesterday that the new deal allows
airlines to fly between Hong Kong and cities like northeastern Yanji, Weihai,
and Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region.
This brings the total number of cities to 56 on the mainland which have
direct flights with Hong Kong, if airlines succeed in their applications to the
CAAC to add the 11 cities to their routes.
The authorities also removed restrictions set on 35 routes between the
mainland and Hong Kong, paving the way for airlines to use any aircraft model
and to add any number of flights on the routes as long as there is market
demand.
"It's difficult to say whether the major airlines will immediately apply to
fly the new routes," said Li Shurong, an analyst with Guotai Jun'an Securities.
Visitors to Hong Kong and from Hong Kong to the mainland are expected to
increase under the newly signed third supplementary agreement of the
mainland/Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement.
The CAAC also allowed three more mainland airlines - Shanghai Airlines,
Shandong Airlines and Sichuan Airlines - to operate flights to Hong Kong,
analysts said.
Officials with several major domestic airlines, however, said yesterday they
haven't applied to start services on the new routes, although they claimed they
had already heard of the new agreement days before its official release.
Zhong Ning, an official with CAAC, confirmed the regulator hasn't received
any applications so far yet.
Currently passenger and cargo services between the mainland and Hong Kong are
operated by four mainland airlines - Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China
Southern Airlines and Xiamen Airlines - and Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific
Airways Ltd and Dragon Airlines Ltd.
