 China poised for low-cost revolution |
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China will become a major market for low-cost airline development within two years, as regulation of the aviation sector eases and demand for air travel explodes, the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation said.
Peter Harbison, managing director of the Centre, the region's leading aviation consultancy group, expects a combination of internal and external pressures to drive the introduction to China of the low-cost phenomenon that is currently sweeping South-east Asia.
All the indicators point to China becoming the next big thing for the growth of low cost airline services ¨C and the rapid rate of developments suggests it will happen by 2005 or 2006.
Harbison said the economic and industry environments in China are fast reaching a stage where low-cost airline development is both inevitable and desirable, and the government has shown a willingness to consider its role in the future of international and domestic aviation.
This will add to an already huge potential for low-cost airline (LCA) services in North Asia as a whole, he added.
The markets are already ripe for development in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, and it will take just a small shift in government attitudes and policy to unleash substantial new growth across these countries.
For China, Harbison suggested that the emergence of LCAs could see Air China, China Southern and China Eastern adopt low-cost operations or regional subsidiaries ¨C a move which would address the current mismatch between aircraft type and capacity and thin demand associated with secondary airports concentrating on low-cost services.
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