Dragonair contributed to China’s air travel growth when it became the first Hong Kong airline to begin operating flights to Shanghai Hongqiao in September.
Demand for air travel in China shows little signs of slowing down. Since February, international traffic has been growing each month by between 30% and 55%, while the much larger domestic market has been expanding at between 13% and 22%.
For the first eight months of 2010 international traffic was up 35% while domestic demand was up 17%, with total traffic up 18% on last year.
Of the 20 new services, 17 are providing competition on existing routes while just three are to new destinations not previously served. These include Moscow Domodedovo in Russia and Phuket in Thailand.
Anna.Aero reports that broken down by airline, Grand China Air has launched five routes, Hainan Airlines four, Air China two while nine other carriers have each launched one route.