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Nov. 29 - China's civil aviation market is to face fiercer competition as Grand China Air, a conglomerate1 officially inaugurated on Thursday, is ready to launch its maiden2 flight on Friday morning.
Headquartered in Haikou of southern Hainan Province, the new carrier is to inherit the business from Hainan Airlines, the first sino-foreign invested airline which has evolved into the country's fourth largest after consolidating3 the operation of three other small airlines, namely Xinhua, Chang'an and Shanxi in 2002. Chen Feng, chairman of the board at Hainan Airlines, will head Grand China Air but declined to disclose the company's ownership structure. However, previous reports said the Hainan provincial4 government controls the largest stake of 48.61 percent with an investment of 1.5 billion yuan. Soros Fund Management holds 18.64 percent while the remaining 32.75 percent is shared by the Hainan Airline Group and other relevant enterprises. Statistics from the State Administration of Civil Aviation showed that the new outfit5 has a registered capital of 3.09 billion yuan (418 million U.S. dollars) and will use the Beijing Capital Airport as its operations base. It will rent three B737-800 aircraft from the Hainan Airline Shareholding6 Company. Sources with the Hainan Airline Group said they would soon inject the group's assets which totaled 40 billion yuan (about 5.42 billion U.S. dollars) into Grand China Air and then seek an overseas listing. Chen Feng noted7 that the new outfit's business would center upon domestic trunk flights and the exploration of overseas air routes. "In five years, Grand China Air will become a world-leading airline and a globally known brand name," he said. He identified the features of world-leading airlines as having a 200-aircraft fleet, profound recognition by passengers and business operation ranking among the world's top 20. Analysts8 said the move may help ease the long-standing dominance of the civil aviation industry by Air China, Southern and Eastern Airlines whose aggregate9 market share totals 80 percent. But for now, Grand China Air can barely compete with the Big Three. Hainan Airlines, upon its establishment in 1993, had only two rented Boeing 737 and 10 million yuan of total assets (about 1.35 million U.S. dollars).
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