The company plans to serve Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong once a day from 1is July. But flights are longer and more expensive. Explanations.
Par Thierry Vigoreux
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© JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP
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Air France plans to serve Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, each destination once a day from 1is July, i.e. a marked increase in rate compared to the current frequencies, of the order of a weekly flight. The national company, present in China since 1966, offered before the Covid-19 crisis “up to 32 flights per week from and to China”, and will “gradually increase its offer” on these lines.
Today, it serves Beijing once a week, Shanghai twice, then three times from February 3, and Hong Kong three times. “As of 1is July 2023, Air France will offer a daily flight from Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle to each of these destinations,” the company said in its greetings to the press. The future increase in the number of rotations to China will allow Air France-KLM to return to activity “almost at the same level as 2019”, said the group’s managing director, Benjamin Smith. To meet the increase in demand, Air France can play on two levers: increase frequencies and play on aircraft capacity (from the 224 seats of the Airbus A330-200 to the 369 of the Boeing 737-300ER).
Extended health checks
Flights to Shanghai will be operated by Boeing 777-300ER equipped with the new Air France long-haul cabins and with a capacity of 369 seats (48 in the Business cabin, 48 in Premium Economy and 273 in Economy). Those to Beijing and Hong Kong will be operated by Boeing 787-9 with a capacity of 279 seats (30 in the Business cabin, 21 in Premium Economy and 228 in Economy). In the name of parity, the Chinese companies China Southern, China Eastern (shareholder of Air France-KLM), Cathay Pacific, etc. will be able to increase their frequencies in proportion.
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The health checks imposed on travelers from China which were to end on January 31 have been extended until February 15 “in view of health developments”, according to a decree which has just been published in the Official Journal. Passengers departing from China and bound for France must, in particular, present a negative screening test for Covid less than 48 hours before boarding. Wearing a mask for passengers over the age of six on board China-France flights is compulsory.
Rising prices
For almost two years, traveling from or to China has been very complicated. Upon arrival of the only weekly flight, a two-week quarantine in a hotel could be imposed. This was recently reduced to three days at home, tells us an expatriate who came to France in November just before the easing of constraints… He tells us that he paid 6,000 euros for his round trip while, before the pandemic , he could come on vacation with his wife and two children for less than 5,000 euros. The journey time was 3:25 p.m., compared to 11:15 a.m. before. Indeed, the outward flight was no longer non-stop Paris-Beijing but included a stopover in Seoul in South Korea to allow the crew to change. If the latter had rested in China, he would have been subject to quarantine and could not have ensured his return flight until two weeks later…
Given the rise in the price of kerosene and the production costs of airlines, the France-China air ticket will not return to its pre-Covid level. Another factor weighs down prices. The ban on overflights of Russia for European companies imposes a longer southern route via Turkey of 1,500 km or two hours of flight. Or at least 30,000 euros to be divided between passenger tickets. Note that Chinese carriers are not subject to this constraint and always transit through Siberia.