HONG KONG (AP) — Australia’s Qantas and China Eastern Airlines Co. say they are teaming up to launch a Hong Kong-based, low-cost airline aimed at accommodating the swelling ranks of China’s middle classes.
The companies said Sunday that they will be equal partners in a joint venture that will start operating in 2013 under Qantas Airways Ltd.’s Jetstar budget brand. The new carrier will fly short-haul routes to China, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia.
Jetstar Hong Kong will start with three Airbus A320s, and add 15 more by 2015. Qantas and Shanghai-based China Eastern will each invest $57.5 million, which could rise to $99 million.
Qantas executives said the venture is an opportunity to “capitalize on the enormous potential of the Greater Chinese market,” which includes Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and the mainland.
“Jetstar’s vision is to make travel more affordable for millions of people across Asia, and the demographics of China with its booming middle class are a key part of that plan,” Jetstar Group’s Chief Executive Officer Bruce Buchanan said in a statement.
China’s airlines handled 292 million passengers last year, and those numbers are forecast to grow to 450 million by 2015, according to estimates by the country’s civil aviation authorities.
The new airline is the latest in a number of budget carriers being launched around Asia, the world’s biggest and fastest growing air travel market. It will also fill a gap in China’s booming market, which has hardly any discount airlines.
This is the type air service Maine needs to get people, and freight, around and out of Maine, Bangor not taking a ‘hit’. Presque Isle, Fort Kent, Millinocket, Augusta, Belfast, even Machias and Rockland could benefit from these type’s of air service’s. Both passenger air service, which could mean both tourism (any one think of how many people would like to come North and fish if they could just find a way to get here without having to fight the Turnpike ?) and commercial air freight (that includes both the local lobster and fish market’s as well as the God-only-knows-how-many local artisan’s and craftsman who could benefit from air freight service) could provide a huge marketing boost to the Maine economy as well as, since there’s only one in Maine right now, a huge amount of aircraft servicing. Kestrel is now gone, and with it, both a very bad taste in everyone’s mouth but also a huge opportunity for Maine to market the old Brunswick NAS as a In-State hub for this type of service. This type air service that Quantas is providing in China is an example that the local Mainer’s should be, and I sincerely hope that those folks in the DECD are reading this, trying to either copy, start or expand on. This opportunity, combined with the reasonable expansion of the Downeaster to both Eastern and Northern Maine as well as any of the ‘Fishing Camp’s’ using a shuttle service from the local airport’s, could open a whole lot of opportunity’s, some that might not even be imagined right now.
Its interesting to read about the old history of Maine in which the methods of transport you mention and suggest are need today in Maine existed over a hundred years ago. Passenger Rail traffic took people from Boston, Philadelphia and New York to every corner of Eastern and Northern Maine. Steamboats serviced the coast sailing out of the large cities. Then it all went away. Funny how the need for such things is coming back.