Airlines will be cashing in as hundreds of thousands of tourists head to Beijing for the Olympic Games next year.

 

Air China Ltd, the only official airline sponsor of the Beijing Olympic Games, has been selling packages of flights and tickets since March to win customers from its rivals.

 

Passengers can buy packages with tickets to the opening or closing ceremonies, which are hard to come by as so many people have booked in advance.

 

"We make sure our customers can get tickets to the ceremony as long as they buy the products, otherwise they will have to try their luck in the ticket lottery," said Wang Tianyun, manager in charge of the Olympic team at Air China.

 

To date, 400 opening-ceremony packages have been sold, along with more than half the 400 closing-ceremony packages, according to Wang.

 

"The packages make Air China's flights a better option for those eager to get tickets to the Olympic Games," said Ma Ying, a Haitong Securities analyst.

 

"The fact that the carrier will join Star Alliance will also boost customers transferring from international routes."

 

Air China plans to join Star Alliance, the world's largest airline grouping, by the end of this year, allowing it to sell tickets on partners' international routes.

 

The carrier aims to boost its market share in Beijing to at least 50 percent from the current 44 percent after it joins the alliance, increase overseas flights, and add several hundred support staff to serve Olympic visitors, company officials said.

 

About 60 percent of Air China's sales come from domestic flights and the rest from international routes.

 

Even if other carriers are not allowed to use the Games for marketing, they're thrilled by the huge inflow of tourists.

 

"The Olympics will bring a flood of tourists to China and they will make use of the trip to visit other cities besides Beijing, which is good news for major domestic carriers like China Eastern," said Luo Zhuping, secretary of the board of directors at China Eastern Airlines. "The three years through 2010 are key to China Eastern with the World Expo coming to Shanghai."

 

Wang Wanlong, spokesman for Shanghai-Airlines, said the carrier plans to buy more planes next year to deal with the passenger flow during the Olympics. It now has 56 planes.

 

Airport capacity

 

"We still have to coordinate with Beijing Airport to see if we can add more flights," said Wang.

 

Shanghai Airlines operates seven flights to Beijing every day.

 

Deng Hongmei, an analyst at Essense Securities Co, said the boom of tourists is good news on the surface, but the question is whether Beijing Airport can handle that many visitors.

 

Beijing may receive 1.7 million visitors for the Olympics, including 1.1 million domestic travelers, according to the city's Olympic Organizing Committee. The airport's passenger traffic rose 16 percent in the first half of this year - a total of 26 million air travelers.

 

"The new runway and terminal may help a lot to deal with the congestion issue," said Deng.

 

The General Administration of Civil Aviation of China announced last month that it will begin trial operations for a third runway at Beijing Capital International Airport in October to reduce congestion and delays.

 

The new runway, if endorsed, will expand takeoff and landing capacity at the airport by 50 percent. The number of flights will increase by 30 flights to 90 an hour.

 

The addition of a new runway and a third terminal will raise the annual capacity of Beijing's main airport to 78 million passengers ahead of the Olympic Games.

 

Meanwhile, the aviation authority on Monday launched express flights between Shanghai and Beijing leaving every half an hour, with services shared among five domestic carriers.

 

The move allows tourists to exchange tickets for other flights among the airlines - China Eastern, Air China, China Southern, Hainan and Shanghai Airlines.

 

(Shanghai Daily August 9, 2007)