Birmingham looking to rival Manchester’s China route
BIRMINGHAM Airport could soon be rivalling Manchester with the launch of permanent direct flights to China.
Reports have suggested that Beijing Capital Airlines, part of the HNA Group, is seeking the rights to introduce weekly services to Birmingham.
Aviation website Routesonline said BCA wanted to start services from Beijing and the first direct link to the UK from Hangzhou, the capital and largest city of Zhejiang Province in Eastern China.
It is understood that negotiations are on-going and as such would represent a major coup for Birmingham, which has already seen summer charter services to China for the past two years.
Amid huge fandare last month and amid the presence of Chinese president Xi Jinping and Prime Mininster David Cameron, Hainan Airlines signed up to a service from Manchester to Beijing from next June but if a Birmingham deal could be secured quickly it is possible it could beat its northern rival to the punch and become the first UK regional airport to offer direct flights to China.
An airport spokesperson was tight-lipped but did say: “Birmingham Airport continues to work with its partners to operate flights to China again next year to meet the enormous demand there is for direct connectivity to and from the Midlands.”
That Hangzhou should be one of the areas trying to forge a new route makes sense, as a delegation from the area visited Birmingham earlier this year in what now looks to have been a fact-finding exercise.
China is already the region’s largest trading partner – thanks largely to its automotive industry.
However, one more ace in the Birmingham hand is that Hangzhou is home to Chinese car giant Geely, the company which owns London Taxi International and which is currently pumping £250m into a new factory in Ansty Park in Coventry for the production of an electric version of its iconic black cab.
Routesonline said the move by BCA fitted with its strategy to grow its long-haul business and if everything went according to plan then the services could begin next year.
BCA only entered the long-haul market in September, flying an Airbus A330 from Beijing and Hangzhou to Copenhagen.
It is thought this could be a model for the Birmingham operation should the firm get approval for its plan from the Chinese civil aviation authorities.
Birmingham has already hosted thousands of visitors from China during the past two years with short-term charter flights operating between Beijing and the second city thanks to carriers China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines.
If it can build on this success and attract more Chinese visitors then it will help to boost the region’s economy by a considerable degree.
