Originally Posted by
Nostoodian
Worryingly low load factors month after month for Hainan's 4 x weekly service to Beijing. 67% in April is very low. I wonder what the yield is? Is this route sustainable in the long run? I think the inconvenient flight times are hurting growth on this route. The fight departs Man at 12.15pm - arriving Pek 5.45am. On the return leg, the flight departs at 1.45am, arriving at Man at 5.40am. For business travelers and tourists, you can't usually check-in to hotels till around 12 noon leaving the weary passenger with some time to burn. Also, who wants to fly at 1.45am in the morning? Maybe after Beijing's new airport is open, better slot timings will become free?
My feelings are with better slot timings, this route is very sustainable for 7 x weekly for an all round year service.
I've used this service extensively since it was launched over 3 years ago.
*Anecdotal evidence alert*
From my experience the load factors appear to be about right....which leaves me puzzled...why the big A333 bird when they have much more appropriately sized B787s, which they used to fly and I've also been on? (and from a pax perspective are far superior).
Most recent flight had around 14 in Business and was around 2/3 full down the back.
One thing that has really been noticeable between 3 years ago and now is that recently I have been almost certainly the only non-Chinese (origin?) person on the entire plane whereas at the beginning it was much more mixed. I take from that that the service just ain't cutting it with the locals here. I used to hear a lot of complaints about this and that back then but nothing cohesive enough to point to anything totally wrong.
The MAN experience from T2 is not too bad - apart from that wretched Escape lounge which is not really a C Class lounge just one of those pay on entry fakes.
Using the new A pier is pretty good (despite what people on pprune have said, it's actually turned out alright).
On flight times: outbound from MAN frankly it's spot on but arrival time in to PEK is very (too)early.
The return at 01.45 is totally awful and the T2 experience at PEK is a bit grim and dingy but HNA do have a very nice lounge there. PEK is a busy airport at that time of the night with flights going to many European destinations. In fairness HNA's Brussels flight which appears to be one of their European flagship routes also goes at that time and I've used it on days when the MAN service is non-op. From my personal perspective I like getting home very early in the morning - the airport is dead and therefore a breeze and you can be off the plane and in a taxi in 20 mins if all goes well.
One other thing I have noticed between then and now is the decline in the quality of the on-board product. It used to be pretty good but now is no better than an average (say) Air China type product. The quality of training appears to have taken a dive. The crew often seem very young indeed and very inexperienced to be serving a C-Class product and their English is sometime nothing more than absolute basic.