Passengers are witnessing a veritable haemorrhage: the abandonment or reduction in the number of flights by European airlines to China. At the beginning of the summer, Britain's Virgin Atlantic announced that it was stopping flights between London Heathrow and Shanghai.
A few weeks later, it was the turn of British Airways has announced the "temporary" suspension for one year of its four weekly frequencies between London and Beijing. October 26 will therefore see the last British airline flight to the Chinese capital.
Last week, Lufthansa officially confirmed that stop services to Beijing from Frankfurt on 26 October. The route, which is currently still a daily service, was originally to be reduced to five weekly frequencies by Airbus A340-600, but the German carrier has finally decided to throw in the towel, justifying this decision by sluggish demand. And, above all, incompressible costs that are making the route unprofitable. However, Lufthansa is not abandoning services to the Chinese capital altogether, as it will continue to offer five weekly flights by Airbus A350-900, since its Munich hub.
The latest companies to announce their withdrawal from the Chinese market: SAS Scandinavian Airlines will withdraw from Copenhagen-Shanghai, its only route to China, on 7 November. Likewise LOT Polish Airlineswhich is abandoning its Beijing route on 24 October. The Polish carrier had resumed this route last June! European companies are therefore offering their Chinese counterparts a veritable boulevard..
The European Commission to the rescue?
Nevertheless, European airlines are increasingly speaking out against what they consider to be a distortion of competition compared with Chinese carriers. The latter have lower production and operating costs. But above all they have the enormous advantage of being able to fly over Russian airspace, reducing flight times by at least two hours compared with a Western European carrier. This has a knock-on effect on fuel costs and, consequently, the fares offered to passengers...
A few days ago, the CEO of KLM, Marjan Rintel, urged the European Commission to take financial measures to protecting European carriers in the face of what it sees as unfair competition from Chinese airlines.
In an interview with a Dutch television channel, Marjan Rinkel expressed the hope that Brussels would look at a way of controlling prices or is considering coercive measures to rebalance relations on the Europe-China route. The pendulum is swinging, as Lufthansa announces the closure of its Frankfurt-Beijing route, while the Chinese carrier Hainan Airlines has just announced the launch of two weekly flights between Madrid and Shenzhen on 19 November.
(Updated 10/10/2024)
