Hainan Airlines

[Land23R]

Apologies if I came across rather harsh about 'getting excited' about slot applications, but I do feel some caution is appropriate in the case of Hainan.

Here are some stats now that we have just over a year's figures, based on the CAA reports.
This only shows total pax and average loads. Load factors are trickier as we have seen A333's (292 seats);
A332's (222 seats); B788's (213 seats) and the odd B789 I think (288 seats).

Month ---------- Pax total ------------ Average Load
Jun'16 - --- ----- 5,711 ------------- 238
July ----------- 9,232 -------------- 256
Aug ------------ 9,287 ------------- 258
Sep ------------ 8,669 ------------- 255
Oct ------------ 7,564 ------------- 210
Nov ------------ 6,627 ------------- 195
Dec ------------ 7,770 ------------- 216
Jan'17 ----------- 8,051 ------------- 237
Feb ------------- 6,711 ------------- 210
Mar ------------- 6,696 ------------- 186
Apr ------------- 6,750 ------------- 199
May ------------- 5,529 ------------- 154
June ------------- 7,190 ------------- 163

If there are daily flights in July/Aug, it will be interesting to see how total pax compare with that first summer. June this year saw the introduction of a 5th flight. A daily flight with a smaller a/c is preferable to a 4 x weekly flight with a larger a/c, but I was slightly surprised to see that April this year saw less pax than Oct. and only slightly more than Nov. while May had less pax than that first partial month of June'16 which only had 24 flights. Perhaps we need 2 full years to understand seasonal variations better.

Another factor as mentioned previously was the view of one person at TAS when the speaker was from the China Forum, that the speaker was less upbeat about HU's performance to-date than the TAS member had hoped and was expecting. The LF mentioned of 74% could be recent months or since start-up, but the point was also made that they could do with more Business Class pax.

I also wonder how much feeder traffic HU are getting from other regions, which may or may not be an issue if HU were to start flights to EDI and or DUB.

This is not to suggest in any way that the figures are disastrous, but perhaps indicate a pause for thought as regards how quickly further expansion may occur.

 

[User001]

The full story with HU will be told soon, don't worry too much.

 

[Land23R]

Me, I don't worry too much - just a little maybe

 

[Land23R]

What is the situation for winter as it stands at present? Is it 4 x weekly to PEK with what a/c type?

 

[ethanegcc]

Reduction from 4 to 3 weekly this winter. Source: airlineroute.net

 

[Dobbo]

Reduction from 4 to 3 weekly this winter. Source: airlineroute.net

Not a positive sign after a summer increase.

The far east routes are generally less seasonal than the US ones, so I wonder what the explanation is.

 

[User001]

There are fleet issues with maintenance rotations, quite a few routes being reduced.

 

[ethanegcc]

Yes, Chicago/San Jose/Seattle-Beijing & Seattle-Shanghai all being reduced similarly. @User001 will it be 787 or a330 operated?

 

[Dobbo]

My understanding is A333, but I could be wrong.

 

[ethanegcc]

Well that's what was planned but Hainan seem pretty bad at updating their schedules.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

I and another group of relatives considered booking with CHH for a Far East trip this Winter. But their fares and schedules (which have presumably just been altered again) appeared so late that we were unable to wait around for them to be loaded. Other dependent travel arrangements had to be booked as well. We needed to secure those offers. So I'm travelling with SIA and my niece and husband are on UAE. I can't speak for the broader ethnic Chinese market who appear to be the main users of CHH, but 'Western' travellers generally book early for long-haul trips. Though our resident Chinese student often books just the day before travel! Perhaps when CHH have a settled and predictable MAN schedule they will be able to release fares and connecting options sooner.

 

[Aceshigh]

However this is dressed up its a bit of a dissappointment. To march all the way up to daily in such a short time but then all the way back to just 3 on an equally short time frame just doesn't indicate its perceived as a business route.

Business need a daily flight 365 days a year especially China of all places.

Business itineraries could possibly cope with 5 a week BUT 3 gets messy. You are more likely going to look at say EK even if it's one stop.

3 is a bit like the US routes there seems to be a naive expectation that travellers will book "around" what the airlines provide. THEY WON'T they will migrate to other connectivity where there is certainty of frequency and operation even if that is via another hub.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

Hainan Airlines is running a promotion which offers passengers departing from Manchester a voucher for GBP200 to offset against a business class booking. This will hopefully boost premium traffic though I hope it is not symptomatic of underperformance in demand for business class on the route.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

Big 'Flash Sale' coming up. MAN - Beijing for GBP397 return. Great price if you're in a position to take them up on it.

EDIT: Later ad says GBP346.24 return. The offer gets better ...

 

[Dobbo]

Does feel slightly concerning when you see these fares on offer - in conjunction with the lower than expected winter frequency...

 

[EGCC_MAN]

It might help if they'd load their fares a bit earlier. I had to abandon any consideration of flying with Hainan because I had so many dependent arrangements to get booked and CHH still hadn't loaded any fares for the dates I needed. I'd have loved fare offers like this. Their loss was Singapore Airlines' gain in my case. Maybe the ethnic Chinese are more of a late-booking culture, but we western types arrange our long-haul trips months ahead!

On the positive side, MAN isn't the only long-haul route featured in the seat-sale, so any market weakness isn't Manchester specific.

 

[User001]

It's strange to see Hainan retracting but CX and AY in particular expanding from MAN stating Asian connections are the strong point (with both airlines having a speciality in Chinese and Japanese connections in particular).

 

[Dobbo]

Hopefully this works and the article can be read. By the excellent Andy Bounds of the FT.

https://www.ft.com/content/919726d8-c0b5-11e7-b8a3-38a6e068f464

Headline points are that the route has doubled spending by Chinese tourists across the north, and tripled the value of exports.

This is an argument in support of providing more direct flights to regions like the north, rather than relying on LHR.

The flight has attracted 15% more passengers than expected.

The report is aimed ammunition for a northern powerhouse trade delegation, currently in Shanghai.

 

[David_itl]

Was just about to post this! Excellent news.

 

[Dobbo]

Looks like the airport are (unsurprisingly) trumpeting this as well.

Be interesting if MAN can make a wider economic case for new direct routes either as part of the national aviation policy, or within the northern powerhouse framework.