China's civil aviation administration plans to lift its control
over the domestic air route operation right by 2010, a senior
official said yesterday, which means domestic airlines would not be
required to go through the approval procedure and would only need
to report the decision to fly on a certain route to the Civil
Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
This is one of CAAC'S moves to gradually ease its control over
the aviation industry.
It would give a chance to small private-owned and joint venture
airlines to compete with their bigger counterparts to fly on
profit-making routes. Such routes are mostly monopolized by the
country's three biggest airlines.
"Liberalization of the air transport services is a global trend,
and China will follow the trend while drafting international and
domestic air transport policies," CAAC deputy director Yang Guoqing
said in a statement posted on the administration's website.
In 1978, the US became the first country to loosen government
control over its aviation industry, and the policy has greatly
stimulated the development of its airlines.
The European Union, Japan, Australia, Canada and many developing
countries have followed that example, making it a global trend.
China that has the world's second largest air transport system
is catching up with that trend, with the lifting of control over
the domestic route another step towards that direction.
A CAAC document on deepening the reform in civil aviation says
it should "be fulfilled in the later half of the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10)."
"We have drafted an overall policy - strengthening safety
control and gradually loosening other controls," Yang said.
Under the policy guidance, the CAAC has been trying to divert
all kinds of capital into the air transport industry.
So far, some airports have adopted the registry-for-record
system, and they include Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, where CAAC is running a pilot
reform project.
But flights in and out of eight key airports - Beijing,
Shanghai's Pudong and Hongqiao, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu,
Kunming and Dalian - as well those linking airports with the 15
largest passenger volume, are still under CAAC's control.
"The administrative control has curbed the development of the
civil aviation industry," said Han Jing, senior assistant to
president of Okay Airway, over the phone.
One CAAC official said the control had been imposed because the
resources of these key airports were relatively limited compared
with the huge demand.
But a more important reason for the control is the protection it
provided to air transport enterprises during its formative years,
Yang said.
"The airlines then were smaller in scale and not mature enough
to adapt to the market," he said. "But now the industry is
maturing, and the firms have expanded, hence it's time to change
the policy."
Some analysts said the three biggest airlines in China -- Air
China, China Eastern and China Southern - could suffer a jolt
because of the CAAC decision.
Han agreed with them, saying Okay Airway welcomes the new policy
because it will make trunk routes accessible to smaller
airlines.
The first private airline to operate in China, Okay Airway today
operates about 20 passenger flights. None of them, however, flies
to Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou.
(China Daily May 31, 2007)