Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, host of the Airline Business Network USA event in 2009, has been working with Shanghai Airport Authority to try and forge nonstop passenger services between the Texas airport and China
Leaders of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and the North Texas business community went to China this autumn to sign a co-operative pact with the Shanghai Airport Authority, but they had to change planes to get there. A major goal of the pact is to change that, says the airport's chief executive Jeff Fegan. DFW in March will host Network USA, the annual Airline Business networking event which will bring together over 300 delegates in Texas.
"China is the largest trading partner for North Texas. We need direct service and the deal is to share technical expertise but also to leverage their influence," says Fegan, noting that cargo can make the Texas-China trip without changing aircraft.
Last year, the two Shanghai airports handled 51.5 million passengers, twice that of 2002. DFW handled about 60 million. "We have all-cargo flights but when you can put a package on a passenger flight it is a good thing. Cargo air traffic there has just exploded and did so even before the Olympics," says Fegan.
In fact, Shanghai's major airport, Pudong, dwarfs DFW in terms of cargo. Pudong handled 2.6 million metric tonnes of cargo in 2007, up 18%, while DFW handled 292,000 metric tonnes in that year. And Shanghai's older secondary airport, Hongquiao, handled 388,904 metric tonnes in 2007. But the amount of air freight carried between Asia and DFW has grown an average of 18% per year since 1993, and air cargo service to China now accounts for 21% of DFW's total air cargo market. China Cargo Airlines has operated direct flights from Shanghai to DFW with Boeing 747 freighters five days per week since 2003.
The area around DFW, often called the Metroplex, is home to more than 20 Fortune 500 companies, among them hi-tech specialist Texas Instruments, Fluor, the engineering and construction company, and Celanese, a chemicals giant. All three accompanied Fegan and DFW executive vice-president for marketing and terminal management Joe Lopano on the trip to Shanghai.
US cargo carrier Evergreen was selected by the US Department of Transportation to start all-cargo service next March, and plans six weekly trips that start at New York JFK and will include some DFW stops. But still, there is no passenger or combination passenger/cargo service between DFW and Shanghai.
American Airlines lost out on a bid to fly mixed passenger/cargo flights nonstop between DFW and Beijing, China, in early 2007. It lost the bid when its main union, the Allied Pilots Association, demanded contract changes so that its members would fly the longer hours needed to make the trip nonstop. When American asked the DoT for permission to start the route at DFW but make a stopover at O'Hare, it lost out. (American has since won rights to fly O'Hare/Beijing in a different DoT proceeding).
American most likely
Still, Fegan says, American is the most likely US flag carrier for nonstop flights to China, whether they're to Beijing or Shanghai. But he adds: "We have had talks with China Eastern [a co-owner of China Cargo]." However, the DFW pact involves much more than leveraging two cities' desires for new service. "We're also ready and willing to offer any sort of technical assistance. For instance, they were just here looking at the runway periphery system that we're setting up. China is just getting into four- and five-runway airports and we have seven, so there's plenty of knowledge to share," says Fegan. DFW has recently unveiled a Perimeter Taxiway Runway System. "The concept is simple in theory: build new taxiways along the perimeter of the airfield, enabling arriving aircraft to taxi around DFW's seven active runways rather than wait to cross them."
Fegan notes that Shanghai airport runs two facilities, and by 2010 the two airports combined will have four terminals and five runways in service as well as a cargo transport zone, which opened in Pudong in March.
Even though bilateral treaties limit the number of new US-China routes, Fegan is hopeful that could change. And he notes international service between DFW and the rest of the world remains strong even for carriers not affiliated with DFW's dominant airline, American, or its global alliance, oneworld. For instance, Lufthansa and KLM both thrive on their DFW-Europe services.Nor is he concerned about the long-term future of American, which has 800 daily flights at the airport. "When American says it is cutting 12% of its flights and services, we're still okay because they'll cut by half of that here at DFW. We are their major hub."
Source: Airline Business
