Behind the opening of ocean-going transcontinental routes is economy, trade and tourism
Text | Deng Yujie Deng Xia
Edit | Wang Jingyi
The flight lasted 16 hours, and China's longest route changed hands.
On May 11, China Southern Airlines officially launched a route from Shenzhen to Mexico City, with a total mileage of 14,147 kilometers, 10% longer than the 12,878 kilometers from Guangzhou to New York, and will become the longest route in China's aviation history.
This "Shenzhen-Mexico City" route is the first direct route of China Southern Airlines to Latin America, and it is also the only direct passenger route from China to Mexico and Latin America.
Courtesy of China Southern Airlines
Why Shenzhen, why Mexico?
"Mexico is one of the destination countries for Chinese citizens to travel abroad, and it is also China's second largest trading partner in Latin America, and the exchanges and cooperation between the two countries are becoming more and more frequent, and there is a tourist base for tourism, business, family visits, labor services, etc., so the opening of a direct route from Shenzhen to Mexico City is a positive measure to respond to the needs of personnel exchanges and economic and trade exchanges between the two countries." The relevant person in charge of China Southern Airlines explained to Caijing.
In recent years, a number of Chinese companies have chosen to build factories in Mexico. According to the Ministry of Economy of the Federal Government of Mexico, China's direct investment in Mexico reached US$587 million in 2022. At the same time, according to preliminary statistics from the Bank of Mexico, the data for the first 11 months of 2023 compared to the same period in 2019 showed that bilateral trade between the two countries increased by 38% over the past four years.
Sanhua Holdings, Hisense Group, Qisheng Technology and other furniture companies, Dongshan Precision, CATL, Lens Technology, Yinlun and other automobile suppliers have officially announced that they will invest in Mexico to build factories, BAIC, JAC, Chery, MG and other Chinese auto brands have already laid out production and sales in Mexico, and Great Wall Motor will also establish a Mexican subsidiary in 2023.
Shenzhen-based BYD is also building a factory in Mexico. BYD is expected to finalize the site of the plant by the end of 2024, and the plan is to build a factory specifically for the Mexican market, according to Stella Li, executive vice president of BYD. The plant is expected to have an annual production capacity of 150,000 units.
Chinese companies have collectively gone to sea, which has promoted the extension of China's shipping routes to farther continents.
01
Who is the longest route?
China Southern Airlines opened a direct route from Shenzhen to Mexico City on May 11, with a total mileage of 14,147 kilometers, 10% longer than the 12,878 kilometers of the Guangzhou-New York route, and will be the longest direct flight route in the history of Chinese aviation, China Southern Airlines officials said.
The route departs twice a week, "Shenzhen-Mexico City" departs every Tuesday and Saturday with a flight time of 16 hours, and "Mexico City-Tijuana-Shenzhen" departs every Wednesday and Sunday with a flight time of 21 hours and 20 minutes. The flight numbers are CZ8031/2 and are operated by the "Sunglasses" Airbus A350 wide-body aircraft.
Caijing checked air tickets on the official website of China Southern Airlines and found that economy class tickets range from 13,000 yuan to 16,500 yuan, and business class tickets can reach about 56,000 yuan.
China Southern Airlines official website
Before the opening of this route, there are no direct flights to Mexico in China, and passengers flying to Mexico or other Latin and South American regions generally have to make at least one transfer in Japan, South Korea, North America, Europe and the Middle East, and the travel time is usually more than 30-40 hours. After opening, the direct flight to Mexico City will only take 16 hours, which can greatly reduce the travel time. At the same time, it also provides convenience for passengers from Latin America and South America to and from Singapore, Bangkok, Seoul and other Asian cities through China.
"At present, China Southern Airlines has signed an aviation cooperation agreement with Aeromexico, and after the opening of the route, in addition to major cities in Mexico, it can also radiate more South American cities with high demand for Chinese passengers, such as Sao Paulo in Brazil, Buenos Aires in Argentina and so on." The relevant person in charge of China Southern Airlines told Caijing.
It is worth noting that the route from Shenzhen is a direct flight, and the return journey requires a stopover in Tijuana, which is due to the high altitude of Mexico City, which the airline has to sacrifice some loads or make technical stops, and China Southern Airlines chose the latter.
China Southern Airlines is the first Chinese airline to launch a route to Mexico. As early as April 2017, it opened the "Guangzhou-Vancouver-Mexico City" route, marking the first route between China and Mexico in the history of China's civil aviation. During the pandemic, routes were disrupted due to blank sailings.
In August 2023, Cui Xiaofeng, Deputy Administrator of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, led a delegation of the Civil Aviation of China to Mexico and held aviation talks with a Mexican civil aviation delegation led by the Director General of the Civil Aviation Administration of Mexico, Osuna. After the talks, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on strengthening comprehensive cooperation between China and Mexico in civil aviation and a memorandum of understanding on air traffic rights arrangements to speed up the resumption of flights between China and Mexico.
In addition to the "Shenzhen-Mexico" route that China Southern Airlines will open, China will also have the world's longest stopover route.
The destination is also South America. In April, Air China will return to the South American market with Beijing-Madrid-Sao Paulo flights twice a week. It will be the longest single stopover flight in the world, with a one-way mileage of 17,584 kilometers, mainly for the Chinese community in Brazil's most populous city.
According to incomplete statistics from Caijing, before South America, among the direct flights from China, long-distance routes with destinations in North America have always occupied the top ten.
Among them, the route from Guangzhou Baiyun Airport to New York JFK operated by China Southern Airlines became the longest direct flight route from China, with a mileage of 12,850 kilometers, equivalent to about five flights between Shanghai and Beijing, with a flight time of 15 hours and 50 minutes.
The second and third routes are "Guangzhou Baiyun-Toronto" and "Shanghai Pudong-New York JFK" respectively, with a mileage of 12,434 kilometers and 11,867 kilometers, and the flight time is also about 15 hours.
In terms of domestic routes, according to incomplete statistics from Caijing, most of the longest direct flights in China are from one corner of China to another, such as from the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta to the western region of Xinjiang.
China Southern Airlines is among the top three longest non-stop flights in China, with routes of "Shenzhen-Kashgar", "Guangzhou-Kashgar" and "Guangzhou-Altay", with a mileage of 5,008 kilometers, 4,861 kilometers and 4,591 kilometers respectively, and a flight time of about 6-7 hours.
In addition to crossing most of China horizontally, other routes on the list include longitudinal routes from Sanya to Harbin, which also have a flight time of more than 5 hours.
However, with the arrival of various holidays and new seasons, airlines are constantly launching new routes, and there will be some changes in the rankings.
02
"Gotta fly out"
Intercontinental travel across the globe is becoming more frequent, and the first intercontinental flights began with transatlantic flights.
On both sides of the North Atlantic are two of the most developed regions of modern times, Europe and the United States. In the early part of the last century, the European and American aviation circles were keen to develop aircraft capable of transatlantic, and pilots continued to challenge the Atlantic.
At 7:30 a.m. on May 20, 1927, Lindbergh, who was only 25 years old, flew the Ryan-style NYP monoplane "Spirit of St. Louis" from Roosevelt Airport on Long Island, and landed at Paris Le Bourget Airport at 10:24 p.m. on May 21 after a 33.5-hour, non-stop flight of nearly 6,000 km.
Lindbergh's contribution was to complete the first transatlantic flight without a single landing in human history, which not only tested the aircraft's long-distance flight performance, but also placed extremely high demands on the pilot. Prior to this, people either flew by airship or had to make stopovers.
Behind the transcontinental and transoceanic flight can not only demonstrate a country's strong aviation industry technology, but also contain huge commercial value. Transatlantic trade arose from the Dutch maritime industry, and with the opening of new shipping routes, the center of European trade gradually shifted from the Mediterranean region to the Atlantic coast in the 16th century. The development of aviation technology has brought world trade to a new stage.
Courtesy of China Southern Airlines
China's civil aviation industry started relatively late. In 1950, China opened two domestic routes for the first time, "Tianjin-Hankou-Guangzhou" and "Tianjin-Hankou-Chongqing". At that time, due to constraints, the Chinese leaders were limited to neighboring countries that had diplomatic relations with each other on planes piloted by their own pilots, and foreign planes could only be chartered for long-distance routes.
In 1956, after the Chinese civil aviation crew completed Premier Zhou's first flight mission to Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Myanmar and Pakistan, Premier Zhou repeatedly expressed his hope to take China's own aircraft to visit countries around the world as soon as possible.
In 1965, Premier Zhou Enlai proposed that "China's civil aviation must fly out", and Premier Zhou realized a visit to Africa on the Il-18 aircraft of China's civil aviation that year.
Subsequently, China gradually established a consensus on navigation with many countries and opened more diversified routes.
In 1966, China and France were opened to shipping, representing the first opening of flights between China and Western countries. On January 1, 1979, the Chinese and American governments established diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level, followed by the signing of the U.S.-China Aviation Agreement. In April 1981, the Civil Aviation of China opened the Beijing-Los Angeles route.
Since its establishment in 1988, Air China has successively opened up routes from Beijing to some European countries, forming an aviation network connecting Beijing to five continents in the world.
China Southern Airlines' upcoming South American route will rank seventh on the list of the world's longest routes, while Singapore Airlines' New York-Singapore route, with a total length of 15,353 kilometers, tops the list.
It took about 3 million years for the first group of humans born in Africa to get out of Africa; It took about 200,000 years for modern Homo sapiens to travel from Africa to Tierra del Fuego in South America; But today, it takes less than 10 hours to fly from South Africa to Argentina, and not only that, people can also reach all corners of the world by plane, high-speed rail, train and other means of transportation.
03
Outbound travel has led to the resumption of international flights
During this year's "May Day" holiday, the tourism market has undergone new changes, and the growth rate of inbound and outbound travel is higher than that of domestic travel.
According to data released by Ctrip, during the May Day holiday, Chinese tourists traveled abroad to nearly 200 countries and regions around the world, with more than 3,000 cities and towns around the world, and Hong Kong and Macao, Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea are popular destinations for outbound travel.
Long-distance outbound destinations are mainly the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom; Countries in the Middle East such as Oman, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have a higher growth rate of outbound travel, more than 3 times year-on-year, and long-distance countries such as Spain, Turkey, Austria, Slovenia, Italy and Georgia have a higher growth rate, more than 1.5 times year-on-year.
Behind outbound travel is the rapid recovery of international routes, and many airlines have announced the opening or resumption of international routes.
Courtesy of China Southern Airlines
As announced by Air China, it will increase flights on the Beijing-Budapest, Beijing-Athens, Beijing-Geneva, and Beijing-Barcelona routes from March 31, 2024, and from April 1, 2024, it will increase flights on the Beijing-Vienna and Beijing-Copenhagen routes.
Hainan Airlines also announced that it will resume the opening of direct passenger routes from Chongqing to Seattle from May 16 this year, which is the third direct route from China to the United States resumed by Hainan Airlines after the Beijing-Boston and Beijing-Seattle routes.
According to the forecast of Flight Steward, in April 2024, 55.67 million passengers will be transported by national aviation, an increase of 4.8% over 2019; The number of international passenger flights of civil aviation was about 44,000, recovering to 71% of the same period in 2019. Among the top 20 navigable countries, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand are among the top three. Flights from the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Qatar and Turkey exceeded the same period in 2019, however, the recovery of flights in the United States remained at a low level, at only 22.7%.
At present, China Southern Airlines has opened 13 international and regional routes from Shenzhen, including 3 intercontinental routes from Shenzhen to Mexico City, Sydney and Moscow, and 10 international and regional routes in Asia, including Dubai, Seoul, Singapore and Bangkok.
"On June 3 this year, China Southern Airlines will also open a direct flight route from Shenzhen to Riyadh. In the future, China Southern Airlines will also accelerate the opening and resumption of international routes, further improve the international route network, and make every effort to improve the level of transit services, so as to provide passengers with more high-quality and convenient air travel services. China Southern Airlines told Caijing.
The resumption of international routes is an important factor related to whether China's civil aviation industry can turn losses into profits this year. At the beginning of the year, the Civil Aviation Administration of China set a target of about 6,000 international flights per week by the end of 2024, recovering to about 80% of pre-pandemic levels.