Air China, the national carrier of China has witnessed an overwhelming response with a load factor of 90 per cent on the Mumbai – Beijing route. Earlier, the airlines operated on the Mumbai-Shanghai route, which was discontinued on October 25, 2015. Currently, the airline is flying a wide-body aircraft, Airbus A330-300.
Speaking about the response in the new route, Asif Naqvi, Sales Manager, Air China Mumbai said, “We have witnessed an excellent response for the Mumbai-Beijing route. Earlier when we had Mumbai to Shanghai flights, we were operating only 112 seats per day on a flight. Now we have 259 seats to offer after deploying A330-300. We are enjoying a load factor of over 90 per cent. We are expecting much more growth in 2016, when we create more awareness in the market.”
One of the major reasons behind introducing the Beijing route is to tap the leisure market in India. Earlier on the Mumbai-Shanghai route the airline received a greater chunk of trade visitors. Naqvi added, “We want the Indian traveller to know about the leisure side of China. Earlier when people used to talk about China it was only about trade. We want to increase the leisure traffic from India to China. We want to shift the mindset of people and make them aware that there are a lot of things in China apart from trade. We have a lot of destinations to be explored. This year, we will call more Provinces and DMC’s from China to come and do presentations and workshops to promote the leisure segment.”
Speaking about the expansion plans for India Naqvi said, “In India there are no expansion plans as of now. Recently we have changed the Mumbai flight from Shanghai to Beijing and increased the capacity. But in future we plan to look at a few more routes. But this year we will first spread awareness about our products and services in India. We will organise a lot of trade engagement activities for the year. We will do it in collaboration with the CNTO. We will also plan to organise roadshows in India in future.”
Air China is a full service carrier with three international regional offices located in Frankfurt, Japan and, the USA. Last year the Airline added 16 new destinations to its route. Its main hubs are the Beijing Capital International Airport, the Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, and the Shanghai Pudong International Airport.
