The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has given China Eastern Airlines permission to reopen its previously suspended Kunming-Dali and Kunming-Jinghong routes, half a year after stripping the Shanghai-based airline of the routes because of mid-air protests by several of its Yunnan subsidiary's pilots.

In March of this year, China Eastern pilots are reported to have deliberately turned back midway through their provincial flights out of Kunming as a form of protest over dissatisfaction with strict lifetime contracts and low pay.

The airline quickly fired its Yunnan management, but that was not enough to prevent regulators at CAAC from discontinuing its Kunming-Dali and Kunming-Jinghong routes on May 4 and reducing feeder routes from Kunming to Lijiang, Shangri-la, Mangshi, Lincang, Pu'er and Wenshan by 20 flights daily, on April 26.

CAAC said that it had restored the routes plus increased the frequency of other China Eastern routes in Yunnan as a result of the airline's 'impressive contribution to Sichuan earthquake relief and rescue efforts', according to aviation trade publication ATW Daily News.

Analysts say the restoration of the routes may not help offset the estimated loss of 405 million yuan (US$59 million) in revenue from the route suspensions, as Chinese domestic tourism has been slumping since the Wenchuan earthquake in May.

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Tags: CAAC, China Eastern Airlines, Dali, Jinghong, Lijiang, Lincang, Mangshi, Pu'er, Shangri-la, tourism, travel, Wenchuan earthquake, Wenshan

Attacks on non-local tour buses by angry tour bus drivers in Jinghong in southern Yunnan have resulted in some Chinese travel agencies suspending tour services to the popular travel destination, according to Chinese media reports.

Some tour bus drivers have turned violent in response to the government's decision to break the monopoly held by local tour bus operators over Xishuangbanna prefecture. Shanghai Daily reports:



Last Friday local bus drivers reportedly staged a sit-in protest in front of government offices in Jinghong, the prefecture's capital.

Some tour operators in Shanghai such as Spring International Travel service and Jinjiang International Travel have suspended tour group services, while government owned China Youth Travel Service says the attacks were "isolated" and that it will continue to send tourists to Xishuangbanna.

Tags: buses, Jinghong, tourism, travel, Xishuangbanna

The Jinghong Hydropower Station's first generating unit went into operation last Thursday, according to a Xinhua report. The 108-meter high dam in southern Yunnan's Xishuangbanna prefecture is the third of 15 planned for the Lancang River (澜沧江), which is known as the Mekong after flowing out of China.

The Jinghong Hydropower Station joins the already operational Manwan and Dachaoshan power stations as the central government is preparing to build 12 more dams on the Lancang generating a total of 25.2 million kilowatts.

The 12.3 billion yuan (US$1.76 billion) station at Jinghong is projected to have a total installed capacity of 1.75 million kilowatts upon completion.

According to Xinhua, "The project is a key part of the country's strategy to develop its vast western region and send electricity from there to the more populated eastern area."

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Mekong River drying up

Tags: Dachaoshan, dams, energy, environment, hydropower, Jinghong, Lancang River, Manwan, Mekong River, Xishuangbanna

On December 29 two ships carrying a total of 300 tons of refined oil from Thailand arrived in Jinghong in southern Yunnan, marking the initiation of a scheme to transport oil from Southeast Asia, according to a China.org report.

The oil transport route is a result of an agreement signed in March 2006 by China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand to cooperate on the shipping of oil along the Mekong, which connects Yunnan with the three Southeast Asian countries as well as Vietnam and Cambodia. In China the river is known as the Lancang Jiang or Lancang River.

The initial accord to ship oil to China via the Mekong allowed for a monthly shipping quota of 1,200 tons of refined oil, but the quota has since been raised after China established an emergency response team to monitor oil transport on the river and respond to any accidents.

The route is a rather risky one for the countries on the Mekong as any spills or accidents would flow southward, affecting the environment and economies of the five countries downriver from Yunnan. China is expecting to receive 200,000 tons of refined oil via the new route, which makes it possible to circumvent shipping oil through the pirate-infested Malacca Strait.

The shipping route is an estimated 200 yuan/ton cheaper to ship to Yunnan than existing land routes and will also make it cheaper to transport oil to Sichuan and Guizhou provinces. Engineers are already exploring ways to increase the river's oil transport capacity.

The Mekong was opened to commercial navigation in the early 1990s and has developed into a major tourism, ore and commodities transport route, with more than US$1.3 billion in goods traveling the river in the past five years.

Southwest China's increasing thirst for oil is a driving force behind projects such as this new river route that are aimed at increasing the Chinese hinterland's access to energy sources.

One of the largest of these projects is a planned US$2 billion pipeline from Myanmar that will connect Kunming to the Andaman Sea port of Sittwe. Scheduled for completion in 2009, the pipeline will be able to transport oil and gas from the Andaman Sea as well as oil and gas shipped to the port from the Middle East and Africa. As with the Mekong project, one of the major advantages of the Sittwe-Kunming pipeline is cutting the Malacca Strait out of the picture.

Tags: Jinghong, Lancang River, Mekong River, oil