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New airport in Kunming

Aaron Chan (4 posts) • 0

I'm told it will add a flight to Australia. I think it's impossible to add the flight to Europe or Toronto because there aren't enough demands to afford it.

FranknFrankn (16 posts) • 0

anyone know where there is a listing of proposed routes - surley if its due to open within months the contacts with the major airlines have been finalised and the advertsing of those routes underway??

Yuanyangren (297 posts) • 0

@detroitweb, you say you have 3 friends that work there? Are they foreigners or Chinese? I have never heard of a foreigner working on a construction site in China, and even in the development stage of most projects in Yunnan at least, few foreigners seem to be involved (or so it would seem).

Back on topic. I have also heard about proposals to link the new Kunming airport with Europe, Australia etc. but I'd say if that were to happen at all, expect only China Eastern or other Chinese carriers to add any such capacity. There is simply no way European or Australian, North American etc. carriers would have any interest in such a route for the time being, not before they all fly to more profitable destinations such as Guangzhou and Chengdu first (some of them do, but not all) and then and only then would Kunming even be considered.

Many airlines from the region such as THAI have reduced capacity to Kunming in recent years, from 7 to 5 flights per week from Bangkok and no more service from Chiang Mai. Vietnam Airlines generally uses smaller, older aircraft on the Hanoi-Kunming route rather than A320s, which it previously operated on some flights on this route. Therefore, time will tell if the new airport will attract back some of the interest in terms of greater flight frequencies and capacity that Kunming seems to have lost over the last couple of years.

If anything, I think the new airport could and should do what it can to attract more low cost carriers. First of all, Kunming residents don't have the incomes to support a large number of only legacy carriers as their only travel choice, when other airports such as Chengdu have low cost carriers such as Air Asia. Low cost carriers would thus be able to link Kunming with more regional cities, something it should focus on first, rather than trying to attract interest from airlines to link cities in other continents (which would be convenient, but not realistic at this time, not until Kunming becomes another Guangzhou or Shanghai).

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