Chinese airlines open new routes to Africa

Travel between China and Nairobi, Johannesburg and Addis Ababa soon will become easier

Air travel between China and Africa will get a major boost thanks to three routes to be launched by Chinese carriers within the next six months. The routes are expected to fuel more Sino-Africa trade and personal exchanges.

China Southern Airlines plans to launch a nonstop flight, shared for marketing purposes with Kenya Airways, from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou to Kenya's capital Nairobi on August 5.

Chinese flag-carrier Air China plans to fly from Beijing to Johannesburg in June and restart its Beijing-Addis Ababa route, suspended for 21 years, in October.

Currently, Kenya Airways flies the Guangzhou-Nairobi route daily, with three direct flights and another four via Bangkok every week. Ethiopian Airlines, which launched its first flight to China in 1973, operates at least 28 flights a week from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to Chinese destinations, including Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Qatar, Emirates and other airlines have connecting flights from African cities to Chinese destinations.

South African Airways halted its money-losing flights from Johannesburg to Beijing in March.

China Southern recently announced that it would use the Airbus 332, a long-range, twin-engine jetliner, to fly three times a week between Guangzhou and Nairobi. It leaves Nairobi at 1:35 pm local time and arrives in Guangzhou at 5:55 am local time on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

The Kenya Tourism Board, welcomed the plan for China Southern Airlines to operate direct flights into the country.

The board's managing director Muriithi Ndegwa says the Guangzhou to Nairobi route will improve accessibility since the airline connects to over 130 destinations in China. "This means that consumers will have a seamless connection from all over China and connect on the same airline direct to Nairobi. The flying time will also reduce."

China Southern, the third largest in the world in terms of traffic volume, currently operates a route from Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, to tourist destination Mauritius, which was launched on June 27, 2014. The two-way flight is scheduled once a week and takes 9.5 hours each way.

The airline transported more than 100 million passengers with a fleet of 600 aircraft in 2014. It is the first airline in the world to operate both the A380 super jumbo and B787 Dreamliner. It has a flight safety record of over 13 million hours and carries passengers to more than 190 destinations with 1,600 flights a day.

Li Dongliang, senior vice-president of sales for China Southern Airlines, says: "Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi is an important hub in East Africa. The route from Nairobi to Guangzhou has been listed in our plans for international strategy air routes for a long time."

He says Tan Wangeng, CEO of China Southern Airlines, had proposed the route in 2013 at a conference of SkyTeam, a global alliance of 20 airlines, held in South Africa. The plan was welcomed by Evanson Mwaniki, CEO of Kenya Airways, who also was at the conference. Li says the two companies talked over the plan again in Shenzhen early in April.

"Mr Mwaniki said his company will cooperate more comprehensively with China Southern Airlines after the flight is launched," Li says.

Li says that China Southern launched the flight in response to the Chinese government's plan to build the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which will connect China with Southeast Asian countries, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

"China Southern Airlines has the responsibility and obligation to fly to the African continent and to Nairobi, a major city in Africa," he says.

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road is part of the One Belt and One Road development strategy, initiated by the Chinese government in 2013. The other part of the strategy, the New Silk Road Economic Belt, is to link China with Europe through Central and West Asia, inspired by the old overland Silk Road trading route.

China has pledged $40 billion to the Silk Road Fund to support the development of One Belt and One Road.

"We launch the flight route not to compete for business with Kenya Airways, but to facilitate more customers to come," says Li. He emphasizes that China Southern Airlines and Kenya Airways are partners, not competitors.

Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines has the most intensive flight route network and the strongest sales network in China, as well as extensive route and sales networks in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. "We will make efforts to bring more tourists to Nairobi from those markets by making full use of our networks," Li says.

Meanwhile, Kenya Airways also has a flight network covering many countries in East, West and southern Africa. "Our common goal is to increase flights from seven a week to 10 and even more, helping passengers from China, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and even Australia and Europe to reach Nairobi and facilitating their reaching other countries in Africa from Nairobi," Li says of the two airlines.

Through codesharing, China Southern and Kenya Airways will work with each other like members of the same family to compete with other airlines in the market, Li adds. Codesharing is an aviation business tool in which one airline operates the flight, but one or more other airlines share the flight for marketing and sales purposes.

"There is no doubt the new service will benefit Chinese and African passengers. We are expecting more Chinese tourists to visit Kenya," Li says.

Ndegwa says that accessibility and flight duration are considerations consumers take into account when choosing a holiday destination. "We are therefore optimistic that we will see an increase in tourist arrivals in the near future."

Recently the tourism agency has embarked on an aggressive marketing campaign to shore up dwindling visitor numbers by closely engaging with the Chinese media and tour operators.

China is one of Kenya's top source markets but has seen a reduction in numbers due to insecurity and health concerns caused by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa last year. Latest figures released in November saw the market decline by 9.8 percent from 34,923 in 2013 to 31,486 visitors.

The launch and resumption of flights from China to Africa occurs as overall trade and personal exchanges between China and Africa continue to boom.

In 2013, almost 1.9 million Chinese passengers flew from China directly to Africa, and about 553,000 Africans arrived in China.

China-Africa trade jumped from $250 million in 1965 to $210.3 billion in 2013. From January to November, 2014, trade jumped to $201.1 billion, up by 5.4 percent year-on-year. China has been Africa's largest trading partner since 2009.

Chinese direct investment in Africa amounted to $25 billion by the end of 2013. In the first 11 months of 2014, the direct investment flow increased by 19 percent year-on-year to $3.5 billion. There are more than 2,500 Chinese companies in finance, telecommunication, energy, manufacturing and agriculture in Africa. Those Chinese companies have created more than 100,000 local jobs.

By the end of 2013, the total volume of contracted projects Chinese enterprises had won in Africa reached nearly $400 billion, with more than 2,200 kilometers of railway and 3,500 km of road built by the Chinese in Africa.

Lucie Morangi contributed to the story. Contact the writers at houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn

houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 04/24/2015 page19)