Hainan Airlines, China's only airline company listed on both the A and B share markets, has decided to build an airport for feeder planes in Changsha, capital of central China's Huan Province.

Establishment of the airport has received approval from the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China.

Three of the company's business planes, each with 32 seats, will take off from the new airport next month, starting the operation of short-range flights in Hunan. The number of planes will increase to between five and eight planes next year, operating 25 flights, between 15 cities in the province.

Feeder planes usually fly routes of less than 1,000 km in distance and have less than 100 seats. Feeder planes are being increasingly introduced to fly domestic routes between big cities in China.

In the international market, the number of feeder planes normally accounts for 30 percent of an airlines total operations. However, there are only a few dozens feeder planes operating in China at the moment, far below the average rate.

China has already started to control the number of large passenger planes flying short domestic flights, while encouraging airline companies to introduce more smaller planes.

As China's largest domestic flight operator, Hainan Airlines owns a fleet of 43 feeder planes and has set up feeder plane ports in Haikou and Sanya cities in Hainan and Ningbo City in east China 's Zhejiang Province. Hainan Airlines owns the major stake in Meilan International Airport on the island province of Hainan.

(People’s Daily 11/12/2000)