Sichuan Airlines: Thrice-Weekly Chengdu-Melbourne, February 2013

As has been noted previously on The Timetablist, regional Chinese airlines have in the past several years cast a wider and wider net beyond the borders of China, and even beyond the shores of Asia. 

One of the most ambitious of late has been medium-sized Sichuan Airlines, whose growth has been underpinned by the growing importance of its homebase, Chengdu, which is today one of interior China's cosmopolitan gateways. 

Sichuan first made headlines with its bold announcement to fly to distant Vancouver from Chengdu, via coastal Shenyang, a service which started in June 2012. Less than a year later, the airline launched long-haul service to a third continent, Australia, with thrice-weekly flights to Melbourne. By the end of 2013, the airline had also launched a separate twice-weekly Chongqing-Sydney service.

The above advertisement boasts of this offering, with a fold-out business class shell holding its own to international standards. Fold-out luxury and privacy is also indicated by the wooden screen at the left of the ad, and if that wasn't enough Oriental flourish, a bough of bamboo is tucked in behind the inviting premium seat. 

The ad has a bit of the old school, if anything, with the service schedule tabled at the bottom (in fact this sort of information is quite helpful and normally these key details are not at all accessible in a print ad of this sort). 

Sichuan most recently made more big headlines earlier this quarter with commencement of service to Dubai, on a twice weekly Chengdu-Yinchuan-DXB routing. Although Emirates has yet to penetrate inner China, Etihad has flown Abu Dhabi-Chengdu daily since way back in 2011, joining other global carriers such as British Airways, KLM, Qatar Airways and United that have touched down in Szechuan from other continents. 

Tianjin Airlines Destinations, 2012

The destination map from Tianjin Airlines's English-language website, which, like Shandong Airlines's map, is only partially interactive and is not itself Romanized. Visitors can scroll their cursor over the cities' (Chinese) names, which then enlarge, but these cannot then be selected to show routes from that city, as is common on more advanced interactive maps. The message also blots out a central part of the territory, concealing a handful of destinations. Altogether it makes for only a cursory understanding of the airlines's system.

However, its clear that the airline is particularly prominent in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, with the airlines's Wikipedia article stating that both Hohhot and Ürümqi are secondary hubs.

The next post will detail the destinations in the southern portion of the map.

Shandong Airlines: The Northern Destinations, 2012

The top half of Shandong Airlines's semi-interactive online destination map, from its website, which at least has an English-language version, unlike some of its sister carriers. The flight routes, whose addition is awaited at the direction of the yellow message box at center, never materialized on a recent visit. Such information would have been enlightening, as the fast-growing airlines of China do not have up-to-date articles on Wikipedia, although that reporting, from July 2010, also lists international flights to Korea and Japan, which are not shown here.

It can be presumed that the major cities of the Shandong Province, principally its supercity Qingdao and its capital Jinan are primary hubs, but most of the major cities of the northeast: Shenyang, Dalian, Tianjin, as well as Beijing itself and the large cities at its south such as Shijiazhuang, Xi'an and Zhengzhou, are all noted here, as is far-off Urumqi.

The next post will feature the lower half of the same map.

Shenzhen Airlines Destinations, 2012.

Like Chengdu, the southern supercity of Shenzhen has its own namesake airline.

Unlike the posts from earlier this month, the super-dense city labels of Shenzhen Airlines's destination map are Romanized, but feature some interesting spellings, seemingly rendered directly from Chinese: Urumqi is transcribed as Wulumuqi, and Harbin is Haerbin. Like Hainan Airlines, the route network that connects these cities in not featured, so it is difficult to determine just how interconnected these cities are.

The next post will detail some of the southernly services, including an array of international flights to many of the capitals of southeast Asia.

Chengdu Airlines Network, Winter 2011-12

Today, China has such a great many airlines, many named solely after a certain large city. Although the massive province of Sichuan has its own Sichuan Airlines, its capital, colossal Chengdu, also has its own namesake carrier, 成都航空有限公司.

Chengdu Airlines most-recent route map from its website is shown above. The landmass of the People's Republic is made of cloud, a lovely detail, over which is laid the sizable network of the regional carrier, which seems to be expanding rapidly, as its Wikipedia article, updated only a year ago, shows only 15 destinations.

For the English-speaker, the network is still a bit mysterious, as only the Chinese characters are used to label the destinations. Thanks to Google Translate, we can establish many of the principal airports that Chengdu Airlines flies to:

北京 Beijing 宁波 Ningbo

长沙 Changsha 上海 Shanghai

成都 Chengdu 阳 Shenyang

重庆 Chongqing 深圳 Shenzhen

大连 Dalian 石家庄 Shijiazhuang

福州 Fuzhou 乌鲁木齐 Urumqi

广州 Guangzhou 武汉 Wuhan

杭州 Hangzhou 西安 Xi'an

昆明 Kunming 厦门 Xiamen

南京 Nanjing

The great number of routes out of Chengdu's Shuangliu International Airport itself (成都) are clear, and the hub is marked by the tailfin emblazoned with the company's logo. Further east, the airline appears to have a focal point at Changsha (长沙) and a serves many coastal cities in the massive Shanghai megalopolis: beyond Hongqiao airport, Nanjing (南京), Ningbo (宁波) and Hangzhou (杭州) are also shown here.

Farther north, the great Capital Airport at Beijing (北京) is represented by a diminutive star, with only a single route connecting it. As far as Chengdu Airlines own network is concerned, the northern focus city is apparently Shijiazhuang (石家庄 ), in Hebei province, southwest of Beijing.

The huge factory of the country, in Guangdong province, is underserved, with only a few routes connecting Guangzhou (广州) and Shenzhen (深圳). In the northwest, a pair of long routes land at the capital of Xinjiang, Urumqi (乌鲁木齐).

Hainan Airlines: Domestic Destinations, January 2012

The dense domestic destination map for Hainan Airlines, which uniquely color-codes cities by their political status, with blue labels marking a "Municipality & Provincial Capital" and a light-green label designating a "Non-provincial capital" with most cities pinpointed by black dots. However, no less than eight cities--chief among them Beijing, Xi'an, Dalian, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Urumqi, and Haikou--are represented by Hainan's new phoenix-wing emblem, which the key simply notes as a "base of Hainan Airlines." The map lacks route lines which would better explain Hainan's mainland system--but its an attractive illustration, nonetheless, and unquestionably an impressive operation.

Korean Air: Chinese Destinations, 2011

China has been a major growth market for global aviation, and Korean Air has successfully marketed its new hub at Incheon as a convenient connection to the mainland, with hundreds of flights each week to more than a dozen destinations. See other posts from today for domestic and Japanese networks.

Aeroflot Worldwide Destinations, 1999: East

The Asia-Pacific destinations of Aeroflot in 1999, which were a great array, from Shenyang and Seoul to Singapore to Sharjah. Note that Bombay is Mumbai but Calcutta's name has not changed. The great many Siberian cities are not listed here, and the lack of route lines on the map leave the viewer to guess which of these many Russian cities had international services.