A couple of weeks ago Sichuan Airlines began flying between Los Angeles and Hangzhou, China, with connecting service to Chengdu. What made this especially interesting is that the airline announced the route just a few days before they began service. I don't ever recall seeing an airline provide such little lead time before starting a…
Continue reading: Sichuan Airlines Adding Flights From LAX To Jinan, China
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Why is it that each longhaul route can be serviced by one Chinese airline? Is that China's rule or the FAA?
It'll be interesting to see how Chinese airlines expand over the next 20 years, since they're expected to buy 1 trillion dollars worth of planes. Makes me wonder if the longhaul regulation will be changed.
I fly to Asia a couple of times per year, and I had not even heard of a city called Jinan. I assume that this is part of an unsustainable bubble of expansion by the proliferation of Chinese carriers that will rapidly rise and fall... and I imagine some airline CEO route expansion ego involved here.
@erickallen - Jinan is just a small provincial capital of over 7 million. I visited last year for a few days. Not too much for a tourist, but definitely a develop-ed/ing, sprawling city. Sizeable pool of flyers who may want to travel to US.
"I fly to Asia a couple of times per year, and I had not even heard of a city called Jinan"
It has an urban population of 4.7 million. By comparison, Los Angeles only has 3.9 million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinan
I'm surprised no Chinese airlines has started Qingdao - US yet. The city should be able to sustain the route more than Jinan.
Los Angeles is about 4 million people within the LA city limits. LA county has about 10 million, and the entire metropolitan area is estimated to be around 18 million.
The thing about Chinese cities is that some cities even larger than Denver go mostly unnoticed by many because they're tiny in proportion to huge Chinese cities like Guangzhou or Shanghai. However, Jinan's metro population seems to be larger than Changsha and Qingdao. I guess that's what happens when a country has over a billion people in it.
At this point, I think these carriers are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Shoot first and ask questions later. All the prime routes have be taken up by the big 3 Chinese carriers.
I think CA introduced a route to Calgary last year. They're already reducing the frequency.
Americans tend to compare China to the US. But China has been much more dense for long long time. It's America that is the population upstart. China had a population of nearly a half a billion people when the first waves of immigration from the Canton region started in the 1800s. The US in those days had about 30 million total.
I guess my point is that other Chinese cities, even small ones that have gotten routes to the US, have some industry that seems to justify the creation of a new route. Shenzhen = obvious, Xian has tourism, Hangzhou kind of also does (but I wonder about that one), Chengdu/Chongqing large industries. Jinan? What do you know that is there?
Thrilled! I'm from Jinan myself.
ATM always fly into PEK and then takes me another 5 hours to get home from the airport (2hr airport - Beijing train station, 30min wait time, 1.5hr train ride and 1hr taxi from Jinan train station to home).
Flying into Jinan directly will save me 4hrs in total.
When you think about the total journey time (3hr pre-flight +16hr airborne + 5hr post-flight) of 24hrs, a 4hr saving each way is very significant. It basically means I get to spend almost a whole more day with my family before I have to head back.
Absolutely thrilled!!!
Grown up in Jinan, I hope this is a good start. I wish there would be a direct flight from Jinan to New York some day. Jinan as a city is not as important and noticed as Shenzhen, Xi'an, etc, but the main reason that there is not many international flight is that it is too close (in Chinese bullet train standard) to Beijing so there is no need to develop longhaul directly from TNA.
3U is going to take some A350s? TNA-LAX and HGH-LAX are both A350's target route, I guess.
For people that never heard of Jinan, that means you know nothing about the Chinese culture. I feel so bad that you never heard of it, even though ten years ago my professor knew Jinan. That is my home town, and I am proud of it because we are the capital city of the provence, we are always top students, and a beautiful name called "Spring city". It is never feel so good that fly from home to home. For twenty years, never think about one day will have the direct flight. It was so different to me when I heard of "Jinan" at the gate.