China to open up key domestic air routes to competition
Afp, Beijing
The monopoly enjoyed by China's three major airlines on the nation's most lucrative domestic routes will end by 2010 as part of plans to liberalise the aviation industry, state press said Thursday. Under the plan, the Civil Aviation Administration of China will lift its control of domestic routes so that carriers can choose which routes they want to fly, the China Daily reported, citing an official with the organisation. Currently the nation's three biggest carriers -- Air China, China Eastern and China Southern -- have a monopoly on most of the big profit-making routes. "Liberalisation of the air transport services sector is a global trend, and China will follow the trend," the newspaper quoted the administration's deputy director, Yang Guoqing, as saying as he explained the new plan. "We have drafted an overall policy (to) strengthen safety controls and gradually loosen other controls." The China Daily said removing the monopoly would give a chance for small privately owned airlines and joint ventures to compete with the major carriers on the profitable routes. China's aviation industry is one of the world's fastest growing, mirroring the spectacular broader economic growth in the nation of 1.3 billion people.
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