New Bright Spot in China's Aviation Industry

Feeder planes are expected to become a new bright spot in the aviation industry of China, predicted the latest issue of the country's news weekly "Outlook".

A new model of feeder passenger plane has made its debut in this Chinese capital. The "Xinzhou 60" has reached the current level of the world's advanced feeder passenger planes in terms of safety, cost, comfort and flight performance, experts said.

Capable of seating 56 passengers, the "Xinzhou 60" can fly as high as 6,000 meters and for a distance of 1,600 kilometers.

The magazine noted that in the past two decades the development of the world aviation industry has witnessed the flourishing growth of feeder planes, which also promise to be the fastest growing aspect of the industry in the next 20 years.

For instance, the US aviation authorities have predicted that by 2010, feeder planes in that country will double in number, with 124 million passengers handled by feeder planes at a yearly growth rate of 16 percent, while the number of those handled by jumbo jets will increase at a rate of only three percent.

With a similar size of territory to the United States, China boasts a population five times bigger, but it only has about 500 civilian airports, a small fraction of the number in the US.

"We should never underestimate the great potential for civil aviation of our country," the magazine said.

Furthermore, the country's strategy of developing the vast western areas provides golden opportunities for feeder line aviation in China, it said.

"Further developing feeder planes is significant not only for the strategy of western development, but also for the revitalization of our country's civil aviation industry," the magazine said in a signed article.

The magazine noted that Brazil's experience of aviation development is worthy of notice by China.

In light of China's special conditions, efforts must be made, first of all, to redesign the current models of domestically-made planes and put them into service in the western regions as soon as possible.

The magazine stressed that the development of feeder planes calls for advances not only in the area of technology, but also in markets.

In the development of feeder planes, it is important to cooperate with foreign partners, and introduce their advanced technologies and equipment, in order to form a relatively big feeder plane industry for the country, the magazine said.

Aviation is a capital- and technology-intensive industry, which calls for strong support from the government. This has been proved in both the United States, Western Europe and Brazil, it noted.

Finally, only large enterprise groups can hope to succeed in the fierce competition in the world's feeder plane industry. Therefore, it is particularly important to pool all the industry's resources and channel them into a few plane manufacturers with both technological and management advantages, the magazine said.

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