It is the best time to discuss Mainland China Civil Aviation, as Cathay Pacific is deciding to operate routes between Hong Kong & Mainland China destinations, which Dragonair has monopoly on such routes, while the Chinese Government is going to merge all airlines splitted from former CAAC into 3 airlines, Air China, China Southern & China Eastern.

There was only one fully state-owned airline - Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC) from 1955 to 1988, when CAAC is splitted into many airlines. The authority performs every air mission including fire fighting, like that of Aeroflot of USSR.

There were very few international air service for Mainland China until 1979, when China opened its door to foreigners, and most were services to USSR & some Asian Communist countries like North Korea & Vietnam.

Cathay Pacific entered Hong Kong - Mainland China air service market since 1979, until early 1990's, when Dragonair replaced Cathay Pacific's position on such routes. Dragonair had very good reputation in China before 2000 because of totally clean safety record, good inflight service & good flight attendants, and new, clean aircrafts, compared to unsafe Chinese airlines of poor service at that period. But Dragonair does not look as good as it was because of great service improvement of Chinese carriers, especially for China Southern & China Eastern. They offer better inflight entertainment, having audio & video, which is not ound in Dragonair (except audio system in A330).

1988 is the most important year for Mainland China civil aviation, because CAAC is splitted into many airlines, with Beijing-based Air China, Shanghi-based China Eastern & Guangzhou-based China Southern being the largest 3 airlines. Air China, however, is still the only flag carrier. So the Chinese Government puts most emphasis onto Air China & ignore the others, thus the other airlines have to cut cost on maintenance & hence causing many fatal accidents. This also makes China the country with most unsafe air travel, even more dangerous than walking on streets of war-prone Sarajevo.

The Chinese Government then performed many measures to improve air safety, like stopping aircraft imports in 1996, sending flight crews to overseas for training, and their effort paid off.

The problem of excessive competition among Chinese airlines, however, become worse, as there are more airlines entering the market, including those set up by city governments & province governments with only a few aircrafts, like Sichuan Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, etc. It is common to have 2 depatrures operated by different airlines operated within 5 minutes for popular routes, like Guangzhou - Shanghai. Fukuoka, a Japanese city with only 500,000 population, is served by 4 Mainland Chinese airlines. This makes the airlines much less profitable.

So larger airlines, like China Southern & China Eastern, offers shares to the public in Hong Kong & New York. There was such plan for Air China in 1997, but cancelled because of poor economic climate of Asia in 1997-1998, and poor Hong Kong & US stock market since then.

The Chinese Government finally decided to merge all airlines splitted from CAAC and airlines opertated by city & province governments into 3 major airlines, Air China, China Southern & China Eastern in 2002.

Some privately operated airlines, like Hainan Airlines (www.hnair.com) & Shenzhen Airlines (www.shenzhenair.com), are not affected from the plan. Shenzhen Airlines operates only B737 in one-class layout of 33" seat pitch compared to 29"-30" for other Chinese airlines, offers foods on every flight, and is the first airline in China to offer unaccompained minor service. These good services and low fare & excellent safety record makes it very popular, especially for Hong Kong residents going to more remote China cities, because most of them are not served by air routes from Hong Kong.

Dragonair was offered Hong Kong - Taipei flight rights since 1 Jul 2002, thus braking the rule of one Hong Kong-based airline for every route from Hong Kong. Because of this, Cathay Pacific decided to reopen routes to China destinations, which is transferred to Dragonair since early 1990's. If Cathay Pacific really operates routes to China, then it would be the best airline in China, with excellent in-flight services.