Hainan Airlines - American Airlines codeshare services: potential routes for Summer 2012

In December 2011 American Airlines and Hainan Airlines announced they would begin a transpacific codeshare arrangement. American would place its AA code on Hainan’s flights between Seattle and Beijing, and on domestic Chinese flights from Beijing. Hainan would place its HU code on American’s flights from Beijing to Chicago, and from Shanghai to Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as on connecting flights in North America on American.

(Click map below for expanded view of transpacific codeshare services:)

Each carrier’s rivals on either side of the Pacific had already created strong cooperative links (Air China and its subsidiary Shenzhen Airlines with Star Alliance partner United Airlines; China Southern and China Eastern with SkyTeam partner Delta), so travel industry observers figured a hookup between American and Hainan was likely as they were the last major carriers left unaffiliated.

Details of specific flight connections are still being worked out between the companies and are unlikely to be announced before Spring 2012. However, I’ve examined the current Winter 2012 timetables for each carrier to anticipate just what kinds of new connections are likely to be offered:

At Shanghai, neither carrier brings much to the relationship. The Chinese government allocates routes, fares, and frequencies among the various domestic carriers (much like how it was done in America pre-deregulation), picking who gets to dominate certain cities. The authorities have decided Hainan Airlines will have the slimmest presence in the country’s largest city – giving them only 7 daily flights from the international airport at Shanghai-Pudong, and just 5 daily flights from the downtown airport Shanghai-Hongqiao.

American’s arrival from Los Angeles gets in too late to connect to any HU departures at Pudong. The Chicago arrival comes in a bit earlier, allowing for connections to the major city Xi’an and resort center Haikou.  Heading eastbound, there is a possible daily connection from Haikou to the Los Angeles flight, and on the Chicago flight, travelers from Haikou, Xi’an, and Lanzhou could make connections.

With these meager connecting opportunities in the People’s Republic, the value of the codeshare agreement as far as Shanghai is concerned is to help Hainan’s local sales team book more corporate travel into the U.S.A.

(Click map below for two-way connections via PVG:)

At Beijing, Hainan Airlines has a much stronger presence, running a connecting hub with multiple banks of flights to dozens of domestic cities – as well as a growing number of overseas destinations. The HU flights to and from Seattle connect smoothly to many Chinese cities. Hainan’s operation is based out of the “old” side of the airport; mostly in Terminal 2, with a few flights from Terminal 1 just next door.

American Airlines has a daily run from Beijing to Chicago. AA flight #186 leaves PEK at 6:55 am on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and at 7:55 am on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. This flight arrives ORD before breakfast and delivers connecting passengers to their final destinations in the Midwest and East Coast by lunchtime. AA flight #187 arrives inbound from Chicago at 11:30 pm Beijing time.  American’s flights use the new Terminal 3 complex on the far side of the airport.

You may suspect that late-night arrivals and early-morning departures at Beijing don’t make for easy connections, and you would be correct. As it stands today, any connection heading into China or heading out to the U.S. would require an overnight stay in Beijing. (On the airport grounds are two full-service hotels: a Hilton and a Langham Place.)

The late-night-early-morning timing was not American Airlines’ choice; they had requested mid-day slots when the route was approved. The Beijing airport authority had other ideas. Perhaps now with a strong local advocate it might be possible to shift the timing of the Chicago run to allow for good connections on both ends so that AA and HU can both profit. (A separate question would be if American could move its flight to Terminal 2 to allow “walking” connections instead of requiring passengers to use shuttle buses.)

If we assume the timing for AA #186 and #187 stays as-is, early-morning departures from Beijing that American may want to put their code on could include:

• Chengdu
• Chongqing
• Dongying
• Fuzhou
• Guilin
• Hailar
• Harbin
• Kunming
• Lanzhou
• Manzhouli
• Mudanjiang
• Shanghai-Hongqiao
• Shanghai-Pudong
• Shenzhen
• Urumqi
• Wenzhou
• Xi'an
• Xiamen

Flights from these cities get into Beijing late at night, so may be potential code-share candidates:

• Changchun
• Changsha
• Changzhi
• Chengdu
• Chongqing
• Haikou
• Hailar
• Hangzhou
• Harbin
• Hohhot
• Jiamusi
• Jinjiang
• Kunming
• Mudanjiang
• Nanchang
• Nanning
• Ningbo
• Qiqihar
• Sanya
• Shanghai-Hongqiao
• Shenzhen
• Urumqi
• Wenzhou
• Wuhai
• Xi'an
• Xiamen
• Yinchuan

Cities that have both inbound and outbound potential codeshare are shown on this map (click for larger view):

To recap, while the Hainan-American partnership is important, at present there are few new service possibilities for U.S.-originating passengers looking to travel beyond Beijing. If American’s Chicago-Beijing flights can be rescheduled, however, a significant number of new connections may become possible. The HU-AA connections through Shanghai will be useful for only one or two cities, and are not likely to develop further.

We will keep watching developments in this association with great interest – follow @weninchina on Twitter and bookmark this blog for the latest news.

Beautiful Shanghai timelapse video

Courtesy of the Chinese travel service ctrip.

Now things start getting interesting!

After years of waiting, we are now finally at the beginning of a major expansion of flying between the USA and China, and this is going to be great news for family travel!

American Airlines will be entering the Los Angeles - Shanghai market in April 2011, which will help keep a lid on fares.

The bigger news is a set of new routes Delta will be launching from April through July 2011:  Atlanta - Shanghai, Detroit - Beijing, and most importantly for adoptive families, the return of Tokyo - Guangzhou service!

The Guangzhou flight will be operated by a Boeing 767-300, which is a much larger airplane than the 757-200 that predecessor Northwest Airlines used up to 2009.  That should also make seats more available and likewise keep fares out of Guangzhou from getting out of control.

As schedules start to load, we'll be updating our Transpacific Flight Planning page with fresh details.

China Eastern seeks SkyTeam alliance; eventually great news for family & adoption travel

China Eastern Airlines, that country's #3 carrier, announced Friday it was applying for membership in the SkyTeam airline alliance, aiming for entry in mid-2011.


SkyTeam already has the country's largest airline, China Southern, as a member. China Southern's key hubs are at Guangzhou and Beijing; China Eastern's main hub is at Shanghai. SkyTeam also includes Korean Air with its large Seoul hub, Delta - with its strong Transpacific network and Tokyo hub, and will be bringing Vietnam Airlines and Taiwan's China Airlines into the network shortly.


The potential value in this action is very strong - Shanghai is not just a major financial center, but also a great destination for family tourism - and the new international airport at Pu Dong (PVG) is well designed with plenty of room to grow and no noise or zoning issues. Shanghai has built a magnetic-levitation train connecting the airport with the central city, and is extending it out to the older domestic airport, Hongqiao (SHA).


The issues that SkyTeam has to work on to make this move a success include:

• China Eastern's limited international reach - only a few routes to Europe and Australia, a daily nonstop to Los Angeles, 5-per-week service to Vancouver, and 4-per-week service to New York JFK. The carrier has only a small fleet of A340 and A330 long-range craft (and a few old A300-600R mid-range birds); 787s are on order but only enough to replace the older A340s and A300s, and maybe get Vancouver and New York to daily frequency.
• The timing of the North American flights is not convenient for connections on either end. The LAX and Vancouver flights leave those cities after midnight; arrivals are too late to make any West Coast or mid-continent flights. The JFK flight arrives mid-afternoon and leaves at 4:35 pm; OK for Florida connections but not timed well for other traffic. 
• Right now, Shanghai's Pu Dong airport handles the international flights; while Hongqiao takes the domestic runs. Hongqiao is certainly more convenient for the city's residents and businesses, but the two airports are as far apart as Baltimore and Washington-National ... farther than JFK and Newark, or Houston-Intercontinental and Hobby.  Maybe when the maglev train is complete, shuttling between the airports will take only a half-hour, but today, that journey will run at least a couple hours. And you still have to re-clear security. 

So, in the next two years (since most of you in the adoption process will only be getting to China then...), SkyTeam needs to convince its members:

• To re-time its North American (and Australian) services to arrive Shanghai in early afternoon instead of dinnertime. Doing this also pushes the arrival times into North America early enough to clear Customs and make connections to inland cities.
• To build several banks of domestic connecting flights from Pu Dong
• Delta already flies a daily 777 run to its megahub in Detroit, but it doesn't connect with families leaving Guangzhou.  (China Southern only flies to Hongqiao from Guangzhou at that time of day.) Again, adding some early morning Pu Dong domestic flights would allow adoptive families to make an easy connection; Delta doesn't need to change the eastbound flight times by even a minute...
• Though, with better feed from inland Chinese cities, Delta might want to consider adding a few additional nonstops to major hubs - PVG to Minneapolis, Seattle, and Atlanta in that order

It's an interesting time to be watching the travel business. We'll keep you informed as to your Transpacific options on weninchina.com's flight planning page, updated every quarter.  A fresh update was loaded yesterday!


(Photo courtesy PhillipC via Flickr, Creative Commons 2.0 license)