China Southern Airlines plans to bolster its passenger service to Australia and New Zealand this year to meet customer demand.
The carrier will add capacity to meet increased demand in the peak summer and autumn seasons. A total of 38 round-trip flights will be added per week to Australia and 14 per week to New Zealand. Twenty more seats will be added to the Guangzhou-Perth service from March 31 and the Guangzhou-Brisbane service will be increased from five to seven weekly from June 23. The Guangzhou-Melbourne service will increase from 10 flights to 14 per week from July 1, while the Guangzhou-Sydney service will remain unchanged at two flights per day. The Guangzhou-Auckland flight will be increased from 10 flights to 14 per week from August 1.
The Australia and New Zealand markets have always been important pieces in China Southern’s globalization game plan. China Southern has developed partnerships linking Oceania with Guangzhou and has been making Baiyun Airport an important international hub since 2009.
China Southern took 30% share of the passenger service to Australia and New Zealand in 2014, totaled 948,000 passenger trips in 2014.The volume was 575% above the 2009 level, reflecting the potential of growth in volume of these markets.
China Southern signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Tourism Australia and Tourism New Zealand in 2014 covering future cooperation in aviation operations, marketing and tourism developments.
The agreements paved the way for China Southern’s focus on improving transportation capacity to the Australia-New Zealand region in 2015 and complement its plan to consolidate its North American and European markets, thus extending its worldwide flight network.(Translation by David)
