China’s Shanghai Airlines plans to add more than 30 new narrowbody and widebody passenger aircraft to its fleet by 2010 in a move to expand international operations and keep up with rapid domestic growth, writes Nicholas Ionides.
Chairman and chief executive Zhou Chi says in an interview to be published in the September issue of Flight International’s sister publication Airline Business that Shanghai Airlines has been seeking government approval to order more Boeing 737-700/800s and 767-300ERs.
He says at least 20 further aircraft are needed by 2008 and at least 10 more by 2010. The aircraft the carrier wants to add between 2008 and 2010 will include some of the first Boeing 787s it has on order for delivery over five years from 2008.
Shanghai Airlines, which has a fleet of just over 40 aircraft, has no aircraft on firm order apart from the nine 787s and five ARJ21 regional jets that are being developed locally by China’s AVIC I.
Zhou sees China’s air transport sector continuing to grow rapidly, and without extra capacity soon, it will not be able to keep up with demand.
“There is still rapid development in the domestic passenger market,” he says. “The growth rates will be more than 10% and I believe 14-16% [revenue passengers/kilometre] growth is reasonable.
“That will be a big problem [a shortage of capacity]. We plan to do something. We need to get more 737s and 767-300ERs and we will need more than 30 new aircraft by 2010.”
Shanghai has 16 737-700/800s, 13 757-200s, five 767-300/300ERs and five Bombardier CRJ200 regional jets. It also has a 737-300 freighter, one Boeing MD-11F and a Hawker 800XP business jet.
Source: Flight International