China to open up key domestic air routes to competition
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BEIJING, (AFP) –The monopoly enjoyed by China’s three airlines on the nation’s most lucrative domestic routes will end by 2010 as part of plans to liberalize the aviation industry, states press said last week. 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 organization. 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.
“Liberalization of the 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 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.