Spring Airlines, a Chinese budget airline based in Shanghai,
said here on Friday its sales revenues for last year reached 540
million yuan.
Spokesman Zhang Lei said the company operated 6,713 flights last
year transporting 1.13 million passengers, and made a profit of
more than 20 million yuan.
Zhang attributed the success to the market response to the
company's budget travel strategy, slashing fares by an average of
61.8 percent, since its launch in July 2005.
Last year, 94.4 percent of seats were booked, the highest rate
among China's domestic airlines.
Spring Airlines has signed an agreement with the Hainan
provincial government to start new flights from all its branches in
other cities to Hainan this year, aiming to bring more tourists to
the island province.
Some of the new flights will begin before the Spring Festival,
according to Zhang.
Spring Airlines launched its maiden flight in July 2005,
becoming the first airline to announce a budget travel strategy in
China.
However, its budget travel strategy also run into regulatory
problems. The company was fined 150,000 yuan by Jinan Price Bureau
in east China's Shandong Province for selling more than 400
one-yuan tickets for flights between Jinan and Shanghai late last
year.
(Xinhua News Agency January 27, 2007)