Hainan starts this summer flights to Peking from BRU

ciaran · Post by **ciaran** » 10 Mar 2006, 17:23

According to the Standaard there is a contract between Brussels and Hainan.
http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail. ... 032006_076
greets
ciaran

Post by **Bottie** » 10 Mar 2006, 17:29

When can we expect a codeshare

burner737 · Post by **burner737** » 10 Mar 2006, 19:43

Welcome again sobelair 767

Regards Tim

regi · Post by **regi** » 11 Mar 2006, 01:11

at last.
nothing yet on their website.

Atlantis · Post by **Atlantis** » 11 Mar 2006, 10:24

The website of Hainan? They don't updated it for several months or a year. The last time they changed it was for the flights to Hungary.

C_J · Post by **C_J** » 11 Mar 2006, 17:55

This finally seems more than a rumour!

andong · Post by **andong** » 14 Mar 2006, 06:57

A meeting at Hainan Airlines Beijing Offices is scheduled on the 27th of March with Flanders Tourism Minister...
An agreement MIGHT be signed on that day...
greets from sunny Beijing

Post by **sn26567** » 17 Mar 2006, 13:34

I find it strange that, for a matter of national interest for Belgium, a Minister of the Flemish government is in charge of the negotiations.

Anyone who has an explanation?

Please no linguistic or regional considerations! I don't want to start a feud!

Yesterday, it was the Walloon Minister of Tourism Benoît Lutgen who expressed his satisfaction about the decision of Hainan Airlines to create a link between Beijing and Brussels in partnership with SN Brussels Airlines. According to the Minister, the first fights would take off during this summer and there would be 4 or 5 weekly flights by Boeing 767-300ER.

SN BA was less positive: "Nothing has been signed and discussions are going on".

When shall we get a statement from a competent Belgian authority?

Post by **airbuske** » 17 Mar 2006, 13:55

Flemish government / Walloon government / Belgian government , yep this is Belgium

In newspapers , on websites and in tourism magazines there was something to read about the new flights from Hainan airlines. For the moment there are still discussions going on. Strange way of working , isn't it ?

SpicyJet · Post by **SpicyJet** » 17 Mar 2006, 14:01

sn26567 wrote:I find it strange that, for a matter of national interest for Belgium, a Minister of the Flemish government is in charge of the negotiations.

Anyone who has an explanation?

Please no linguistic or regional considerations! I don't want to start a feud!

Yesterday, it was the Walloon Minister of Tourism Benoît Lutgen who expressed his satisfaction about the decision of Hainan Airlines to create a link between Beijing and Brussels in partnership with SN Brussels Airlines. According to the Minister, the first fights would take off during this summer and there would br 4 or 5 weekly flights by Boeing 767-300ER.

SN BA was less positive: "Nothing has been qsigned and discussions are going on".

When shall we get a statement from a competent Belgian authority?

Simply because the carrier that here should be seen as the "flag carrier", SN, is not capable of daring anything creative as its management is scared of investing in widebodies. So private companies, mainly estabilshed in the Flemish part of Belgium, are putting pressure for some help to create an air link with the country that will soon be the third economy of the world.

BrightCedars · Post by **BrightCedars** » 17 Mar 2006, 14:46

SpicyJet wrote: ...SN, is not capable of daring anything creative as its management is scared of investing in widebodies. So private companies, mainly estabilshed in the Flemish part of Belgium, are putting pressure for some help to create an air link with the country that will soon be the third economy of the world.

But those same private companies don't seem to have balls either and take a stake in SN to support this kind of initiative and share the risk, right.

Flying-Belgian · Post by **Flying-Belgian** » 17 Mar 2006, 15:53

Silly question, but why Hainan and not Air China ?
Has anyone heard how they are doing on PEK-BUD route ? Anything about the service ?

Thx !!
FB.

Post by **speedbird1** » 17 Mar 2006, 16:04

So does anyone actually have a definite answer here or just more speculation?

Emirates

AFApresident · Post by **AFApresident** » 17 Mar 2006, 23:04

I heard somewhere that there is a market for only about 150 daily passengers between Brussels and Beijing.

So an airline needs to get a cargo contract as well before this operation could become profitable (unless you have a lot of high paying business class passengers).

Still I hope this works out!

Atlantis · Post by **Atlantis** » 18 Mar 2006, 10:43

This is a little bit off topic but I have read that Best Tours will organize extra flights to Peking due to a high demand. At this moment three extra flights are booked later this year.

Those flights are departing now in an other country, in the future Best Tours can depart in Bru.

LX-LGX · Post by **LX-LGX** » 18 Mar 2006, 11:23

sn26567 wrote:I find it strange that, for a matter of national interest for Belgium, a Minister of the Flemish government is in charge of the negotiations.

Anyone who has an explanation? Please no linguistic or regional considerations! I don't want to start a feud!

Yesterday, it was the Walloon Minister of Tourism Benoît Lutgen who expressed his satisfaction about the decision of Hainan Airlines to create a link between Beijing and Brussels in partnership with SN Brussels Airlines. According to the Minister, the first fights would take off during this summer and there would be 4 or 5 weekly flights by Boeing 767-300ER.

Because:

planes bring in lots of tourists, and tourism is a regional matter ("gewestelijke materie"), and thus the authority of the tourism ministers.

Flemish minister of Tourism Bourgeois hopes Hainan will bring in lots of Chinese tourists, and Bourgeois want them to visit Flanders. I'm not aware of the efforts that Wallonia and Brussels Capital Region have done, but Flanders Tourism ("Toerisme Vlaanderen") has already set up quite an organisation for the inbound Chinese market. Just one example: inbound touroperators have to register with China to organize tours for Chinese citizens through Europe. Toerisme Vlaanderen organises this.

Don't overestimate the agreement that will be signed during this official visit to China: it's the contract between Hainan and BIAC that will count. The purpose of signing a contract during those visits is more to show the public that this particular overseas trip is not a waste of money and not a holiday trip. Oh no, it's hard working you know.

Remember the contract, signed between minister Fientje Moerman and Jet Airways during her official visit to India in March 2005: it was front page news here (read: "well done minister"). But we haven's seen many Jet Airways planes in Brussels yet, have we?

Lukas_Ridgeston · Post by **Lukas_Ridgeston** » 19 Mar 2006, 00:19

As I said in the "What's new for BRU"-thread: all this political interference has more to do with ... politics than business. Ministers are always looking for something to announce, something that will put them in a good daylight ("perception", anyone?). Don't believe they are really that involved in the negotiations...

About the PEK-BUD link: think China's biggest private airline, major investor = George Soros, who happens to be of... Hungarian descent. He has invested millions of $ in both China and Hungary

(ps read his book "The Bubble of American Supremacy" - highly recommended!)

favourite_belgian · Post by **favourite_belgian** » 21 Mar 2006, 08:20

There were already rumours last year about Hainan Airlines starting flights between Brussels and Beijing and Brussels and Shanghai. At the time I wasn't aware that this was in conjunction with SNBA so I wrote them an email asking if they were looking into this. The reply was that they had sent my comments to their network planning department and I heard nothing more of it. Of course I have no idea what it takes to set up a new route especially in a country like China where much is done underneath the table. However, I found it a bit typical that a company like SNBA would let an other airline, read foreign, walk away with the deal. Anyway, if Hainan Airlines is indeed to start flying to Brussels, I won't be using them. I've flown them before domestically and I was not impressed. Service was of the Chinese variety, i.e. bad and on one particular flight the seat was very uncomfortable with no leg room whatsoever. My knees were pressed into the seat in front of me.
Based on my personal experience here I think SNBA could be an another alternative to the business community here as demand for business seats is high and SNBA can offer a Western level of service, which any Chinese airline is yet to reach.

Stoney · Post by **Stoney** » 21 Mar 2006, 09:28

Favourite Belgian,

I flew Hainan Airlines domestically before and I can't agree with your statement. Service on board was of a higher level than other Chinese domestic carriers, a lot higher in my opinion. Just my 2 cents

OO-VEX · Post by **OO-VEX** » 28 Mar 2006, 23:31

As the webteam has closed the BRU in 2006 topic because it was just a forum on its own, I would like to remind you this message from Bart

We would also like to ask our dear members to create a few extra topics about news of Brussels Airport in stead of putting it all in the same topic. Some news deserves a dedicated topic.

These are the posts coming from the BRU summer 2006 topic about Hainan:

Airbus_fan wrote:Just to come back on Hainan, they don't have an agreement with the Russians yet to fly in Russian airspace. Let's hope they'll get green light very soon!

Flying-Belgian wrote:I'd be rather astonished they'd fly PEK-BUD via the Himalaya route...

Blackhawk wrote:seems to be official now: http://www.tijd.be/nieuws/artikel.asp?Id=2182278

liebensd wrote:At the 17H00 radio news: Hainan signed an agreement with the a Flemisch minister to start linking Brussels and China. The Flemisch government will open a tourist info center in China, to atrack more Chinese travelers for Belgium.

Greetz,

Dave

edit by blacky: more info in dutch: http://www.standaard.be/Kanaal/Index.as ... 032006_043

Atlantis wrote:Good news for BRU and Flanders.

b-west wrote:Nice to hear this... and maybe a possible window to the far east for SN?

Tommypilot wrote:Good news for Belgian Aviation and Tourism in the Flanders

SilverJET wrote:I hope this move will atract other foreign carriers to BRU.