aviation | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

11/11/2014

COMAC signs deal for 30 C919 jets with China Merchants Bank: source | Reuters

Chinese state-owned plane maker Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC) has signed an initial agreement to sell 30 of its C919 single-aisle commercial jets to the financial leasing arm of China Merchants Bank (600036.SS), a person with direct knowledge of the deal told Reuters on Tuesday.

The nose of China's home-grown airliner C919 is unveiled in Chengdu, Sichuan province, July 31, 2014. REUTERS/China Daily

The order, sealed at China’s premier air industry trade show in Zhuhai, lifts COMAC’s order book for the C919 to 430, mostly from domestic companies. Still in development, the C919 will be the first Chinese-built jet of its type, targeted at eventually competing with Boeing Co (BA.N) and Airbus Group NV (AIR.PA).

Financial terms of the order weren’t disclosed.

via COMAC signs deal for 30 C919 jets with China Merchants Bank: source | Reuters.

Posted in Aerospace, aviation, China alert, Economics, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Airbus, Aircraft, Boeing, China, China Merchants Bank, Comac, COMAC C919, Commercial Aircraft Corp of China, commercial jets, initial agreement, Kenneth Maxwell, Zhuhai

03/11/2014

Wanted: 500,000 pilots for China aviation gold rush | Reuters

China’s national civil aviation authority says the country will need to train about half a million civilian pilots by 2035, up from just a few thousand now, as wannabe flyers chase dreams of landing lucrative jobs at new air service operators.

Guests walk next to aircraft during the Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (ABACE) at Hongqiao International Airport in Shanghai in this April 15, 2014 file photograph. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/Files

The aviation boom comes as China allows private planes to fly below 1,000 meters from next year without military approval, seeking to boost its transport infrastructure. Commercial airlines aren’t affected, but more than 200 new firms have applied for general aviation operating licenses, while China’s high-rollers are also eager for permits to fly their own planes.

The civil aviation authority’s own training unit can only handle up to 100 students a year. With the rest of China’s 12 or so existing pilot schools bursting at the seams, foreign players are joining local firms in laying the groundwork for new courses that can run to hundreds of thousands of dollars per trainee.

“The first batch of students we enrolled in 2010 were mostly business owners interested in getting a private license,” said Sun Fengwei, deputy chief of the Civil Aviation Administration of China‘s (CAAC) pilot school. “But now more and more young people also want to learn flying so that they can get a job at general aviation companies.”

While uncertainties remain for what will be a brand new industry, firms are betting they can make money and trainee pilots are convinced they can land dream jobs. Among them is Zong Rui, a 28-year-old former soldier in the People’s Liberation Army from Shandong province in east China, attending a pilot school in Tianjin, an hour’s drive from Beijing.

“The salary is good for a general aviation pilot,” Zong told Reuters by telephone, preparing for a training session. Even without a job lined up, Zong is certain money he borrowed to learn how to fly will pay off: “I can easily pay back the 500,000 yuan ($81,750) tuition in two years, once I get a job.”

via Wanted: 500,000 pilots for China aviation gold rush | Reuters.

Posted in Affluence, aviation, China alert, Economics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, Civil Aviation Administration of China, civil aviation authority, Economic growth, economy, pilot school, transportation

22/10/2014

Boeing and Chinese partner to make jet fuel from ‘gutter oil’ | Reuters

Aircraft makers Boeing and Commercial Aircraft Corp of China have launched a joint pilot project to turn used cooking oil into jet fuel.



Embed from Getty Images

Their plant, based in the southeastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, will be able to convert just under 240,000 litres a year of used cooking oil into fuel, Boeing said in a statement.

The project will allow the two aircraft makers to test the viability of producing biofuel using the cheap and widely available form of cooking waste, referred to in China as “gutter oil“.

Boeing and its Chinese state-owned partner estimate that 1.8 billion litres of fuel could be produced in China a year using gutter oil.

In February, the Civil Aviation Administration of China granted a subsidiary of state-owned behemoth Sinopec Corp a licence to produce jet fuel from used cooking oil.

Gutter oil has long been a public health concern in China due to its widespread use in restaurants. Used cooking oil can contain toxic compounds and is often considered insanitary.

Chinese media reported in 2010 that crime rings were collecting used cooking oil from sewers and drains, rebottling it and selling it as new.

Over the past two years, dozens of people have been given lengthy prison sentences for the scam, which has made many Chinese in major cities sick. Last year one man was sentenced to life in prison for making and trafficking gutter oil.

via Boeing and Chinese partner to make jet fuel from ‘gutter oil’ | Reuters.

Posted in aviation, China alert, Economics, innovation | Leave a Comment »

Tags: BOE, Boeing, China, Civil Aviation Administration of China, Cooking oil, Hangzhou, jet fuel, San Antonio, Sinopec, United States Air Force, United States Department of Justice

06/08/2014

Air India Loses Money to Dodge Giant Billboards in Mumbai – Businessweek

In the legion of problems that can beset an airline, here’s a novel one: gigantic billboards.

Super-sized advertisements stand in the flight path of Mumbai’s main airport, forcing departures to climb rapidly on takeoff. But Air India’s daily 15-hour flight to Newark, N.J., which requires a full load of fuel, would be too heavy to clear the billboard with its full load of passengers.

As a result, Air India now leaves 51 passengers off the Boeing (BA) 777-300ER. Flying 15 percent under capacity means losing 100 million rupees ($1.6 million) per month on the route, an Indian aviation minister told legislators on Monday, according to my Bloomberg News colleague, Anurag Kotoky.

Photograph by Dhiraj Singh for Businessweek.com

Airport officials at Chhatrapati Shivaji International have so far removed 13 of the 15 offending billboards in flight paths.

Air India has not reported a profit for eight years and required a government-funded rescue in 2012. United Airlines (UAL) uses a smaller 777-200 for the same route and has not experienced similar problems on departures, a spokeswoman told Bloomberg News.

via Air India Loses Money to Dodge Giant Billboards in Mumbai – Businessweek.

The air above Mumbai too is congested

Posted in aviation, Economics, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Air India, Boeing, Dhiraj Singh, gigantic billboards, India, mumbai, Newark New Jersey, Shivaji, United Airlines

13/06/2014

Can Asia’s Biggest Low-Fare Airline, AirAsia, Make Money in India? – Businessweek

After successfully building the largest low-cost airline in Southeast Asia, AirAsia’s (AIRA:MK) chief executive, Tony Fernandes, is taking on one of his biggest challenges yet: Making money in a country with some of the highest operating costs in Asia. Today, AirAsia India, a joint venture with Tata Sons and Telestra Tradeplace, began flying in India, where a crowded market and high costs have pushed several major carriers into the red. Because of high jet fuel taxes and airport charges, operating an airline in India can cost as much as 60 percent more than in nearby countries, KPMG India partner Amber Dubey said on Bloomberg Television today.

An AirAsia India Airbus A320 takes off as it embarks on the carrier's inaugural domestic flight to Goa from the Kempe Gowda International Airport in Bangalore on June 12

But with new Prime Minister Narendra Modi inspiring confidence that things will finally change for the better in India, Fernandes “is very optimistic,” he told Bloomberg Television today. “State governments are very aviation friendly at the moment; there is a strong national government that has put tourism at the top of its agenda,” he said. “It’s all about the timing.” AirAsia is starting small in India, with only two planes, although Fernandes says the plan is scale up to six. At that level, “we are very confident of breaking even,” he said.

That won’t be easy. While India has several weak incumbents, such as Jet Airways (JETIN:IN) and SpiceJet (SJET:IN), the country is also home to IndiGo, the biggest domestic carrier by market share. IndiGo has plans to more than double its fleet to 150 planes by 2023, its president, Aditya Ghosh, told Bloomberg News in September. It has greeted AirAsia’s arrival by introducing group discounts of up to 25 percent and offering flights between Bangalore and Goa for one single rupee. With a fare war already under way, “no way can anyone make profits,” KPMG’s Dubey told Bloomberg Television today.

via Can Asia’s Biggest Low-Fare Airline, AirAsia, Make Money in India? – Businessweek.

Posted in aviation, Economics, India alert, Tourism, Transport | Leave a Comment »

Tags: AirAsia, AirAsia India, Asia, Goa, India, Narendra Modi, SpiceJet, Tony Fernandes

11/04/2014

China’s soaring potential a springboard for budget airlines | Reuters

The chairman of Spring Airlines requires his employees to use both sides of a sheet of paper before throwing it away and even removed most of the bulbs lighting the corridor to his office – all part of his quest to save money.

A Spring Airlines crew member sells food onboard an Airbus A320 aircraft near Shanghai July 6, 2012. REUTERS/Aly Song

China’s first low-cost airline has been profitable since 2006, its first full year of operation, but the budget aviation market is about to get a lot more competitive as the government moves to promote low-cost travel to meet a surge in demand from an increasingly wealthier population.

Over the last 18 months, Spring has been joined by two new competitors. China’s big state-backed carriers are also looking at launching budget carriers, a strategy industry executives say would be an additional boon to plane makers Airbus Group (AIR.PA) and Boeing Co. (BA.N).

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) plans to add nearly 80 new airports by 2020, including a $14.5 billion second airport in the capital Beijing, and is urging other airports to build new terminals and convert existing facilities to handle budget airlines.

The initiative, industry observers say, would usher in a new era for low-cost carriers (LCCs) in a country where one in four people travelled by air in 2013. That number is set to rise to almost the whole population in the next two decades, according to Airbus executives, with China to replace the United States as the world’s largest aviation market during the same period.

via China’s soaring potential a springboard for budget airlines | Reuters.

Posted in aviation, China alert, Economics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Airbus, aviation market, Beijing, budget airlines, China, Civil Aviation Administration of China, Low-cost carrier, Spring Airlines, United States

08/04/2014

Singapore Airlines to Start First-Ever A380 Superjumbo Flights into India – India Real Time – WSJ

Singapore Airlines Ltd.C6L.SG +0.68% will be the first commercial carrier to operate Airbus A380 superjumbos into India next month, after authorities there lifted a years-long ban on the world’s biggest jetliner.

The first A380 delivered to Singapore Airlines arrives at the Airbus Delivery Centre in Toulouse Blagnac, southern France, in this file picture taken October 15, 2007. Reuters

Singapore’s flag carrier says starting from May 30 it will deploy the double-decker A380, which seats up to 471 passengers, on daily flights to New Delhi and Mumbai, India’s two largest aviation hubs.

Those flights will replace two existing daily services currently flown by smaller Boeing 777 aircraft that are timed about 90 minutes apart, helping boost cost efficiencies for the airline. Another daily 777 service to both cities will remain unchanged, according to the airline.

Major airlines have been lobbying to fly the A380 into India since the aircraft’s commercial launch more than six years ago. Analysts say it will help alleviate worsening congestion at India’s major international gateways, particularly since the number of passengers is expected to rise in the coming years.

Boeing to Raise India Plane Demand Forecast Amid Surge in Travel – Businessweek

Boeing Co. (BA:US) is set to raise its India market forecast as the planemaker expects surging travel demand in the world’s second-most populous nation to withstand a slowdown in economic growth and a fall in rupee.

Jet Airways Boeing 737

Boeing will increase its prediction for India plane demand in the next couple of months, Dinesh Keskar, a senior vice president at the Chicago-based company, said in an interview to Bloomberg Television’s Haslinda Amin in Singapore today.

The planemaker in 2012 raised its 20-year India market forecast by 9.8 percent, at least the third increase in a row. Carriers in the Asian nation will need 1,450 new aircraft, worth $175 billion over the next two decades, it said last year.

via Boeing to Raise India Plane Demand Forecast Amid Surge in Travel – Businessweek.

Posted in aviation, Economics, Good news, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: $175 billion, Boeing, Boeing Co., Chicago, Dinesh Keskar, Economic growth, Haslinda Amin, India, India market, populous nation, senior vice president, Singapore

CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon

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