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Aviation History
1993
1993 - 1613.PDF
While the West suffers recession, the immature Chinese market is seeing spectacular growth, with traffic expanding by 31.7% in 1992 In a country which professes to be the World's biggest-remaining commu nist power, the statement: "We will let the market decide — what else can we do?" must seem extraordinary. Yet these are extraordinary times in China, and that is exactly what Professor Lu Ruilin, director of international relations for the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) says. The market to which he refers is in airline services, where CAAC is faced with coping with the proliferation of new independent airlines: the decision is whether or not they will survive. The scale of the transformation under way in China, as it emerges from more than 40 years of a rigidly controlled, centrally planned economy, can hardly be overstated. With "Deng's dollar revolu tion" gathering pace, money-making has replaced Marxism as the dominant ideol ogy and the speed of structural change, particularly in the airline sector, has been both impressive and alarming. Five years after CAAC lost its monop oly as China's only major carrier, there are some 35 airlines in service. What little influence CAAC retains over the carriers which grew out of its division in 1988 is disappearing rapidly. The fragmentation of the airline mar ket, with the dilution of CAAC's control ling influence, poses enormous problems. The organisation's monopoly as airline operator, airport authority and regulatory body may not have been ideal, but it was at least in a position to enforce uniform levels of management competence, aircraft airworthiness and maintenance quality — however inadequate by Western standards. With the proliferation of small inde pendents have come alarming discrepan cies in the quality of equipment, management and training, reflected in China's deteriorating safety record. As the CAAC evolves into a purely administra tive and regulatory body, its most pressing challenge is to enforce acceptable safety standards while ensuring that infrastruc ture development matches the growth of the market. CHINA, AIRLINES ~7 *7 The CAAC's Lu says: "It is really a very diffi cult task. There are al ready many rules and regulations governing the safety and operations of the airlines. The problem is that we are growing too fast. We need more training and expertise, airports and ATC [air-traffic control] facilities, infrastructure and experience. Our diffi culty is that we cannot get enough experi ence within a limited amount of time." He continues: "I think almost every body in this industry is working very hard, but it's very difficult for them to carry out their mission satisfactorily. We need understanding from the outside world. Those working in this field have a very heavy burden." STAGGERING INCREASE During 1992, scheduled airline traffic in China increased by a staggering 31.7% over the previous year, with 28.68 million passengers carried. The growth rate is expected to fall to 15.5% this year, but this is still on course to give China a total air-transportation turnover of 12-15 bil lion revenue-tonne kilometres by the end of the decade — a three-to-fourfold in crease over 1992. Boeing economists predict that China's traffic growth will average 11% through to 2010 — the highest in the world, al though Kim Cheung, Boeing's project director for market research says: "The numbers themselves are not that impor tant. If China continues to improve its reform programme, the economy will integrate into the world economy and the potential may get higher." CHASING 56 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 23 - 29 June, 1993
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