tripple7 From Netherlands, joined Aug 1999, 538 posts, RR: 0 Posted (2 years 6 months 2 weeks 6 days 4 hours ago) and read 9602 times:
According to well-informed aviation site luchtvaartnieuws.nl KLM will start flights to Xiamen in 2011.
KLM will be the first European carrier to fly Xiamen. Start date of the flights is not yet know. My guess is that KLM will deploy direct flights with B772ER.
330lover From Belgium, joined Jul 2008, 504 posts, RR: 1 Reply 3, posted (2 years 6 months 2 weeks 6 days 4 hours ago) and read 9380 times:
Quoting mogandoCI (Reply 1): totally oddity - XMN is only 11th busiest airoprt in China
Can be, but maybe , Xiamen is one of those cities with quite a lot of European investments?
Just as an example: there could be quite important Dutch, Belgian, French, British, German,... companies with important investments / daugher companies in Xiamen. Better fly there and generate some lucrative business travel than to fly to bigger cities but with less business traffic.
Britten Norman Islander VP-FBR on Falkland Islands. THAT'S FLYING!
LJ From Netherlands, joined Nov 1999, 4149 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (2 years 6 months 2 weeks 6 days 2 hours ago) and read 9079 times:
Quoting mogandoCI (Reply 1): totally oddity - XMN is only 11th busiest airoprt in China
Quoting mogandoCI (Reply 1):
Somehow Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Chongqing has no service, but Xiamen does ??!!
Guangzhou no international service? CZ is flying daily ex CAN to AMS and other destinations around the world, not forgetting all the other foreign airlines serving CAN... Furthermore, LH already flies to Nanjing. Both Shenzhen and Chongqing already have cargo connections to AMS. However, where is the international connection to Europe from Xiamen?
Quoting initious (Reply 2):
Was quite puzzled about LH starting flights from FRA-NKG too. However, great to see smaller Chinese cities slowly being served by European airlines!
I don't understand why you're puzzled. Nanjing is a very important cargo destination and if I'm not mistaken some German companies have some factories close to Nanjing. Therfore it was very logical for LH to start service to NKG (and a three weekly A343 isn't much capacity).
Quoting 330lover (Reply 3):
Can be, but maybe , Xiamen is one of those cities with quite a lot of European investments?
Just as an example: there could be quite important Dutch, Belgian, French, British, German,... companies with important investments / daugher companies in Xiamen.
Philips has a factory in Xiamen if I'm not mistaken and Boskalis is also doing something there.
HB-IWC From Greece, joined Sep 2000, 4414 posts, RR: 76 Reply 7, posted (2 years 6 months 2 weeks 5 days 18 hours ago) and read 8440 times:
Quoting keesje (Reply 5): KLm usually starts new destinations with A332s, Chengdu e.g.
Both Chengdu and Hangzhou were started with the B772ER. Currently Chengdu operated with A332 in the summer season and with B772ER in the winter season, albeit at a lower weekly frequency than during the summer months.
Xiamen will likely be started with B772ER and will complement Miami and the yet to be announced Buenos Aires as new additions to the KLM longhaul network in 2011.
kaitak From Ireland, joined Aug 1999, 11956 posts, RR: 37 Reply 11, posted (2 years 6 months 2 weeks 4 days 17 hours ago) and read 6012 times:
Clearly KLM believes there is! The are clearly sufficiently confident and pleased about their success in other Chinese markets to make a go of this one - and I'd be very surprised if this were the last "regional" Chinese route that they attempt to open; there are many, many more to choose from and by going in there, they are achieving a number of goals:
1) They are THE premier European carrier flying to China (I'm not saying they actually are now, just that this is their goal)
2) They are the FIRST into regional destinations, which means that in time, they will be seen as the "first airline that comes to mind", and not just from AMS; Schiphol is of course accessible from virtually every major airport in Europe.
3) Being the first into a destination and getting itself known means that it will be a lot more difficult for other carriers (and you can bet it has M/E carriers, not just European carriers in mind) to come onto the route in competition with it. In time, the likes of LH and others may come onto these routes, but by then, KLM will be so well known and dominant that it will have a significant advantage.
KLM presumably now has a "template" for developing Chinese regional markets, which it will have gained from opening HGH and CTU; it has a marketing strategy and it has a valuable head start in building brand loyalty in the region; you can bet that the regional authorities will be very appreciative towards KLM - and that other regional authorities seeking routes to the EU will "call KLM first".
sw733 From United States of America, joined Feb 2004, 6072 posts, RR: 10 Reply 12, posted (2 years 6 months 6 days 7 hours ago) and read 5113 times:
Quoting 330lover (Reply 3): Can be, but maybe , Xiamen is one of those cities with quite a lot of European investments?
I am a frequent traveler to Xiamen (6x yearly usually...I call that frequently considering I live half a world away), and it certainly does have lots of international, including European, investment. Not only that, but there is zero connection to Europe, so they have the entire market to themselves (minus people connecting via HKG, PEK, etc.). Sounds smart to me...it may be a "small" city, but small in China is relative...Xiamen metro area is still around 3 million people!
flyingfool From Netherlands, joined May 2005, 415 posts, RR: 0 Reply 14, posted (2 years 5 months 3 weeks 3 days 2 hours ago) and read 4325 times:
Quoting BasilFawlty (Reply 6): CZ has been flying CAN-PEK-AMS-PEK-CAN since 1996
And with the start of next summerseason will start additional nonstop flights between CAN and AMS with 772's
Quote from scramble.nl:
Quote: China Southern:
Next to daily AMS-PEK-CAN a new 3x weekly AMS-CAN direct flight in de morning (CZ307/308) also operated by B777
How long will the onestop flight last with this new service? I expect that they will seperate CAN and PEK from the CZ345/6 flight and will serve both destinations daily with dedicated flights in the not to distant future...
Quoting HB-IWC (Reply 7): Xiamen will likely be started with B772ER and will complement Miami and the yet to be announced Buenos Aires as new additions to the KLM longhaul network in 2011.
joost From Netherlands, joined Apr 2005, 3128 posts, RR: 4 Reply 17, posted (2 years 5 months 3 weeks 3 days 1 hour ago) and read 4173 times:
Quoting LJ (Reply 4): Guangzhou no international service? CZ is flying daily ex CAN to AMS and other destinations around the world
There is a one-stop same-plane service CAN-PEK-AMS on the 772, indeed. Additionally, AF flies 1x daily A343 on CDG-CAN. But it's not faster than for example AMS-CDG-CAN.
But considering the major hub CZ is operating at CAN, I'm surprised there is no non-stop AMS-CAN service yet.
Quoting keesje (Reply 5): KLm usually starts new destinations with A332s, Chengdu e.g.
I don't really see a pattern here. As mentioned by HB-IWC, CTU and HGH were started with the 772ER. PTY was started with MD11, as will MIA. The destinations I can think of that were started with the 332 are YYC, DFW; and KGL and MCT (as tag-ons)
Quoting kl911 (Reply 16): Outbound is great, but isnt the inbound arriving to late in AMS for EU-US-MEA connections? EU connections might still work, but still.
But Europe isn't conveniently located for US-China, MEA-China or Africa-China connections anyways. So in order to be attractive to customers, they will need to offer such low fares that it isn't attractive for KLM anymore
For EU-connections, 18:30 is perfectly fine, as practically all European destinations are served between 20:00 and 21:30, during the last big hub wave. (only AMS-PRG, operated by OK at 19:30 might just be a bit tricky).
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