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Air China Launches Beijing-Madrid-Sao Paulo Service

At one o'clock of December 10, 2006, the Air China's flight CA907 departed from Beijing and flied to Sao Paulo of Brazil in South America with a stopover in Madrid of Spain, which represented the establishment of the first air link between China and South America.

Prior to departure, the inauguration ceremony was held in Beijing Capital Airport, with the President of Air China Mr. Ma Xulun, Brazilian Ambassador to China Mr. De Castro Neves and Spanish Ambassador to China Mr. Carlos Blasco Villa jointly cutting the ribbon for the inaugural flight and being interviewed by journalists. The Brazilian Ambassador and his wife were also taking the inaugural flight back to their country.

In recent years, the passenger traffic between China and South America is growing fast and especially, Brazil has become the largest destination country for China in South America. In 2005, the one-way passenger traffic between China and Brazil was around 53,000 people, a growth of 24% over the year of 2004. With the launch of the new air services, the traffic volume in the market is forecasted to grow by 30% approximately.

Due to the long distance between China and Brazil, all the current types of aircraft are not capable of operating the non-stop services. Through a comprehensive evaluation, Air China finally decided to choose Madrid, Capital of Spain as the intermediate point. With the large passenger traffic demand, the supply of air transport capacity in the market is inadequate. According to statistics, in 2005, the number of Chinese citizens visiting Spain has exceeded 100,000 person times for one-way trips. China Eastern Airlines, Air Europa and Air Plus Comet had once operated direct flights from China to Spain but all ceased their operations subsequently. Till now, there is no direct service between China and Spain. The Madrid-Sao Paulo local market has big potentials as only Iberia Airline enjoys the sole flights operation after Varig Airlines withdrew from the market.

Air China's new Beijing-Madrid-Sao Paulo flights are conducted twice weekly on Thursday and Sunday by Boeing 767-300 aircraft with the flying time of 12 hours 45 minutes from Beijing to Madrid , 11 hours 50 minutes from Madrid to Sao Paulo and a stopover of one hour and a half in Madrid. By far, the seats are well booked.

Beijing-Madrid-Sao Paulo route is the first direct air route from China to South America and is also the only direct link between China and Spain, which has helped fill up the blank of the aviation market. It will make it more convenient for the personnel and goods communications between the three areas and will definitely give a boost to the economic and cultural exchanges between China and South America as well as Spain. In addition, by launching the first South American routes, Air China made a strategically monumental step towards building its global route network.