Australia/China: The rise of Chinese airlines in Australia

There are now seven China based carriers serving Australian cities, China Eastern, Air China, Hainan Airlines, China Southern, Xiamen Airlines, Beijing Capital Airlines and Sichuan Airlines. Between them they offer non-stop services from at least one Australian city to more than 10 cities in China, with more on the radar. Hainan Airlines began non-stop flights from Melbourne to Xi'An at the beginning of the month. In September, Beijing Capital Airlines launched a Melbourne-Qingdao-Shenyang service. In January, Air China will begin a non-stop service between Melbourne and Shenzhen. China Eastern Airlines will begin a non-stop service between Sydney and Kunming on November 24. The thrice-weekly flights come on top of China Eastern Airlines' Sydney-Hangzhou service that began on November 16. Driving this push from Chinese airlines into Australia's airspace is the rise and rise of Chinese tourism. According to the China Tourism Research Institute, 120m Chinese citizens travelled abroad in 2015. That's just a squeak more than the 117m who travelled outside China the year before although Australia is easily outpacing that increase. In the year ending June 30, 2016, Australia had 1.136m visitors from China, a lift of 22% on the previous year. Those figures go a long way to explaining the enthusiasm among Chinese carriers for services to Australia. Traffic from Australian tourists to China is respectable, although nothing like as big. The Chinese airlines are highly competitive. Chinese carriers regularly show up on flight search engines if you're looking for the cheapest fares to Europe. Off-peak economy saver fares from Melbourne or Sydney to Paris start at less than A$1000 with Air China, and fares like that put pressure on other airlines to keep prices low.<br/>