Xiamen Airlines Receives Green Light for SkyTeam Membership

Posted 18/11/2011

Chinese carrier Xiamen Airlines has been formally accepted as a member of the SkyTeam alliance by its membership and will now begin the process leading to full entry into the grouping, which is expected to take place by the end of next year.  The airline’s entry will notably increase SkyTeam’s activities in the Chinese market, particularly in the flourishing southeast region of the country.

Based in Xiamen, a coastal city in East China's Fujian province, Xiamen Airlines operates a network of domestic and regional services throughout China and Asia, predominantly from the hub airports of Xiamen, Fuzhou and Hangzhou.  It offers key international links to Singapore Changi from Fuzhou and Xiamen; to Hong Kong from Jinjiang and Xiamen and to Taipei from Changsha, Fuzhou, Hangzhou and Xiamen.

XIAMEN AIRLINES NETWORK (non-stop weekly flights; November 14-20, 2011)
Rank	Destination	Weekly Flights	Weekly Seats	% Capacity
1	Xiamen (XMN)	76	13,370	30.5 %
2	Fuzhou (FOC)	36	6,449	14.7 %
3	Singapore Changi (SIN)	21	3,969	9.1 %
4	Hong Kong (HKG)	21	3,472	8.0 %
5	Taipei Taoyuan (TPE)	17	3,213	7.3 %
(others)		87	13,319	30.4 %
TOTAL		258	43,792	-

Fujian is one of the more prosperous provinces in China with diverse industries such as clothing, tea production and electronics, while tourism has also seen very strong recent growth and is one of the highlights in the region’s economy.

While currently over 90 per cent of the network is domestic, Xiamen Airlines’ goal is to boost its international traffic by expanding to serve major long-haul destinations in Australia, Europe and North America, starting in 2014 and its alliance entry will be mentored by existing member China Southern Airlines, a major shareholder in the operator.

“SkyTeam has long recognised the region’s huge economic potential, resulting in our number position in Greater China.   Xiamen Airlines’ membership in SkyTeam will strengthen our offer in the southeastern part of China and the cross-strait markets,” said Michael Wisbrun, Managing Director, SkyTeam.  “And while we further capitalise on the expanding network, our members in China will work together to enhance alliance-wide benefits for our customers.”

---

With effect from March 19, 2012 the Breaking News coverage on Routesonline is powered by Airline Route.  For more analysis on these stories please read our expanded coverage of the key stories of the day in The HUB. 

You can also keep up to date with the latest network development news by following the live updates from @Routesonline, @TheHUBRoutes, @RouteExchange and @airlineroute on Twitter.  While all the latest news from our events can be seen by searching the #RoutesAfrica, #RoutesAmericas, #RoutesAsia, #RoutesCIS, #RoutesEurope and #WorldRoutes hashtags.

All material is copyright of UBM Aviation Routes but the views expressed are not necessarily the views of UBM Aviation Routes and the company shall therefore not be liable for the contents of any article that appears on the site.  Although the best efforts have been taken in collecting and checking the material we can not and do not warrant that the information contained in this product is complete or accurate and does not assume and hereby disclaims liability to any person for any loss of damage caused by errors or omissions.

PLEASE NOTE: From March 7, 2012 schedule data for all news stories has been extracted from OAG Schedules iNET; All GDS data is based on a live GDS update on the day of publication; Traffic data extracted from IATA BSP system for the year ending December 2011.  All information is subject to change.