Chinese and Japanese airlines have cut flights between the countries due to a dispute over who owns some small and mostly uninhabited islands. The situation in Japan comes after a series of anti-Japanese demonstrations and sentiment. Some Japanese air passengers have cancelled their travel plans over concerns of safety. At the same time, Chinese air passengers have cancelled their travel plans to highlight nationalism.
In Japan, the national carrier, Japan Airlines, is treating the situation like a force majeure and waiving the fees for customers to change or cancel tickets for flights until 19 October. It has announced reductions to flight services between 10 October and 27 October, citing irregular changes in demand. Flights between Tokyo Narita and Beijing, and Osaka Kansai and Shanghai Pudong will be cut from two daily to just one service a day. Services between Tokyo Narita and Shanghai Pudong will be cut from three a day to two a day. This is a 22% cutback to capacity for the airline in the China-Japan market.
Seiji Takamoto, a spokesman for Japan Airlines, says they don’t expect a very big impact on earnings because of this. These flights account for just over 10% of international flight sales, so the impact on overall profits will be small. Volume for new reservations has dropped, and they will gauge demand next month before deciding to extend the capacity cuts passed 27 October.
In China, since 18 September All Nippon Airways has had 18,800 ticket cancellations for travel between this month and November. About 3,800 were from passengers originating from Japan, and the rest were from passengers originating from China. The total cancellations represent between 5% and 8% of the airline’s available capacity. This isn’t too good since the carrier accounts for about 24% of all capacity between the two nations – operating 24 routes from ten Chinese airports and four Japanese airports. A spokesman for All Nippon Airways says they are doing all they can to avoid flight reductions, but the level of cancellations could result in such an announcement.
However, Spring Airlines is anticipated to get hit the hardest, as the carrier expects traffic to fall 30%-40% in the short-term because of the dispute. It says 120 of the 400 passengers with tickets to fly from now until next month’s National Day Holiday have cancelled bookings. Its ten scheduled charters to Tottori have been cancelled.
China Southern has also cut capacity through next month, including: flights from Guangzhou to Fukuoka and Osaka; Beijing to Toyama; Dalian to Sapporo, Shenyang to Nagoya, Fukuoka and Osaka; Harbin to Osaka and Niigata; and Tianjin to Hiroshima. The airline accounts for about 10% of capacity between the two countries.
On top of this, Juneyao Airlines has delayed the launch of services between Shanghai Pudong and Okinawa until November. China Eastern Airlines has also indefinitely delayed the resumption of its four a week service between Shanghai Pudong and Sendai – which had been due to launch on 18 October – citing lack of demand. A spokesman for China Eastern said other services are operating as normal, but they expect those to be affected as well.
However, the situation isn’t limited to just between China and Japan, as a dispute over a travel ban has led to a fall in capacity between China and the Philippines. The public uproar hasn’t reached anything like what has been seen in Japan, but this is mostly because of historical discord between China and Japan. Despite this, the Philippines has been hurt by a travel ban imposed by Beijing, resulting in several tour operators cancelling trips for mostly Chinese tourists.
Philippine Airlines, the nation’s biggest carrier, accounts for 37% of capacity between China and the country. With a decline in demand, capacity levels have been the lowest for the year during September. There are about 11,000 one-way seats a week scheduled for the market, which is 15% down from May, when the travel ban was imposed.
Shekhar Gupta
CEO
Capt. Shekhar Gupta [ Pilot, DIAM, M.Ae.S.I., MAOPA [USA] ]
shekhar@aerosoft.in
Blog : http://shekharaerosoft.blogspot.in/
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