Looks like this could be the reason why Chinese airlines seem to have rather a lot of aircraft hanging around...
From atwonline.com:
CAAC has reported that China's airline industry suffered a loss of 2 billion yuan
($241.36 million) in the first half of this year. CAAC stated that among China's more than 30 domestic airlines, only Shandong Airlines, Hainan Airlines and Shanghai Airlines were profitable. Industry RPKs were up 9.6% and cargo up 8.6% during the period.
BTW, my last posting was intended to be tongue in cheek!
