On August 6, a new express flight service, which is being coordinated by the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) and jointly operated by Air China, China Eastern, China Southern, Shanghai Airlines and Hainan Airlines, started its trial operations between Beijing Capital International Airport and Shanghai Hongqiao Airport.

While CAAC aims this new project would make air travel between the two airports much quicker and more convenient by offering perks such as easier ticket transfer across different airlines and designated check-in desks, security checkpoints, waiting hall and baggage re-claim area, but it turned out that both the travelling public and civil aviation personnel reacted to the project with relatively strong criticisms.

More Expensive Tickets

After the new express flight service announcement came out, airfares between Beijing and Shanghai Hongqiao have increased dramatically. Compared to before when there used to be heaps half-price tickets or even cheaper ones around, passengers can only get tickets that are ranging from 20% off to full-fare for most flights at present.

Although both the CAAC and those project participating carriers deny the idea that there is any price-fixing between the airlines, but many Chinese media reports have quoted industry insiders saying that CAAC's poorly structured outline and guidance on ticket transfers across airlines for passengers travelling on Beijing-Shanghai Express Service would indirectly cause participating airlines to withdraw lower-priced tickets.

The reason being is that if airlines don't re-adjust discount availabilities then there is a chance that passengers will buy heavily-discounted tickets and then transfer to another carrier free-of-charge. However the ticketing airline still had to finalise payment with the other airline at a price maybe much higher than what they originally charged to the passenger. If that happens, then a loss would occur to the ticketing airline. Therefore this would 'force' airlines to change their discount availabilities based on factors other than pure market conditions and this shall be seen as "government policy forces market adjustment" regardless whether or not it was intentional, which is doubtlessly against the way how a market economy operates.

In fact, industry insiders are not the only ones come to such conclusion, Chinese media and websites are filled with full of feature articles, public letters and voices urging the Chinese government to put an end to this ridiculous rising of average airfare between Beijing and Shanghai Hongqiao and ensure the project to be purely market-driven, not government-driven.

Few Real Improvements

According to a number of news reports and several passengers who took flights between Beijing and Shanghai Hongqiao during the first two days of the project's trial operations, many passengers felt there had been too few real improvements in their overall air travel experience.

For instance, many complained that the queues at few check-in desks designated for the express service were much longer than when passengers used individual airline's check-in desks, some passengers said they had to line up longer than 20 minutes even for the CIP queues in order to be served. In comparison, the 20-minute wait means two or three times longer than before. Similar complaints have also been made in relation to designed security checkpoints as well, particularly during rush hours.

One passenger claimed that his total travel time from check-in to the completion of baggage re-claim, even minus a short flight delay, was still way over the 3 hours that CAAC aims this new express service would achieve. "And I just didn't feel it had been more time-saving than before, not even the slightest", he said.

Costing Other Passengers

While many media and passengers have criticised the new express service has brought rising airfares and few air travel enhancements, many people involved in the new express service's everyday operations also think this project doesn't not worth much merits at all.

"Even if this project becomes a 'success', such 'success' comes at the huge cost of enormous resources and the benefits of other passengers. For example, participating airlines and airports have put their already-constrained various resources such as personnel etc. in order to accommodate this project. This may likely result poorer levels of overall operational efficiency and service quality." an airline ground service agent said.

On the other hand, there has also been Chinese media report quoting CAAC officials saying that in order to ensure the relatively high flight on-time performance target set for flights covered under Beijing-Shanghai Express Service priorities will be given over other "non-express" flights in terms of airspace, air traffic control and various airport resource utilisations etc. Many industry professionals believe while such measure may bring some minor benefits to those travelling between Beijing and Shanghai Hongqiao, but many more passengers travelling on other routes will have to pay for it and suffer in the end.

Future

According to the CAAC, the idea of express service may be similarly expanded to other major cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the future. However, faced with so many problems and criticisms, who knows what will happen tomorrow.