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High-speed trains are proving a serious threat for Chinese airlines
25 Oct 2013
Week in China
Most airlines have in-flight magazines and China’s high-speed trains offer similarly glossy publications in their seatbacks too. En-route to Tianjin earlier this month WiC picked one up, noting its English name, Fellow Traveller, with interest.
Why? The title has peculiarly political connotations.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a ‘fellow-traveller’ as “a person who is not a member of a particular political party (especially the Communist Party) but who sympathises with the group’s aims and policies.”
In post-war Britain, the term was derogatory. For example, in Anthony Powell’s cycle of novels A Dance to the Music of Time, the unsavoury politician Kenneth Widmerpool is referred to repeatedly as a fellow-traveller and possibly a Communist spy.
That makes it seem like an odd choice by the high-speed railway bosses. Or could a mischievous English-language sub-editor be at work?
Then again, there isn’t much else to find fault with in China’s bullet train service. When WiC has travelled on the trains, the journey has been clean, comfortable and impressively punctual. The network is proving popular with local passengers too. As the New York Timespoints out: “Practically every train is sold out, although they leave for cities all over the country every few minutes.”
In the wake of the Wenzhou train crash in 2011 (see WiC117)(Contrary to wide-spread western reports，the trains involved were NOT high-speed trains，not according to Chinese standard or designation anyways。They were a pair of D-trains running on conventional old style tracks!!!）, the railway’s bosses have done an impressive job improving safety. There have been no fatalities on bullet trains since then, leading the New York Times to observe: “While the Wenzhou crash is still talked about in China today, statistics suggest that China’s high-speed trains have actually proved to be one of the world’s safest transportation systems so far.”
The trains have now carried 1.8 billion passengers since 2009, leading MIT mathematician Arnold Barnett to calculate that the “mortality-risk” equals or exceeds that of the world’s safest airlines.
The US newspaper also says that the bullet network is now carrying twice as many passengers as domestic airlines each month (and by next year will be handling more than 54 million people on a monthly basis).
In fact it’s the local airlines that now experience the worst PR. Usually the complaints are about the perennial flight delays, but earlier this month another type of incident dented the reputation of Air China, the country’s best-known carrier.
According to the People’s Daily, a flight from Korla to Beijing on October 6 was beset by a bout of mass food poisoning. One of the passengers who later fell ill noticed shortly after eating a beef pancake that it was beyond its expiry date. She told staff, but they said there was nothing they could do and carried on with the meal service. Within half an hour, two children were vomiting, 30 passengers were complaining of stomach ache, and long queues were forming for the toilets.
On touching down, one family was taken to a hospital and diagnosed with an ‘enteritis of unknown origin’.
After an investigation Air China said that the pancakes had not passed their expiry date, but that mistakes had been made and it apologised to passengers.
It’s the kind of story unlikely to attract new customers at a time when the airlines are already complaining that they are losing business to high-speed rail. In their first half results all three of China’s leading carriers blamed their sagging financials on the loss of passengers to bullet trains.
Speaking to CCTV, a senior executive with China Southern described the situation as “very challenging” adding that ticket prices had been slashed to meet the competitive threat. He then estimated that on any route of 800km or less, the airlines were vulnerable to losing half their passengers to the trains.
And according to the magazine New Fortune, 50% of flights on routes of less than 500km have already been cancelled by local airlines. For example, Shandong Airlines grounded its Jinan to Nanjing service after loads dropped from 100 passengers per plane to 30, reports China News Service.
One of the flagship routes – Beijing to Shanghai – is proving a particularly tough battlefield. Here the bullet train quickly started grabbing traffic after its launch in 2011. Travellers cite various benefits in letting the train take the strain. For one, it is far more likely to be on time – according to a report last month by Hong Kong Commercial Daily 82% of flights out of Beijing faced delays while a slightly less miserable 72% were late in Shanghai (it’s a subject we’ve touched on before, see WiC83).
Another plus: businesspeople can still use their mobile phones or send emails on the journey.
25 Oct 2013
Week in China
Most airlines have in-flight magazines and China’s high-speed trains offer similarly glossy publications in their seatbacks too. En-route to Tianjin earlier this month WiC picked one up, noting its English name, Fellow Traveller, with interest.
Why? The title has peculiarly political connotations.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a ‘fellow-traveller’ as “a person who is not a member of a particular political party (especially the Communist Party) but who sympathises with the group’s aims and policies.”
In post-war Britain, the term was derogatory. For example, in Anthony Powell’s cycle of novels A Dance to the Music of Time, the unsavoury politician Kenneth Widmerpool is referred to repeatedly as a fellow-traveller and possibly a Communist spy.
That makes it seem like an odd choice by the high-speed railway bosses. Or could a mischievous English-language sub-editor be at work?
Then again, there isn’t much else to find fault with in China’s bullet train service. When WiC has travelled on the trains, the journey has been clean, comfortable and impressively punctual. The network is proving popular with local passengers too. As the New York Timespoints out: “Practically every train is sold out, although they leave for cities all over the country every few minutes.”
In the wake of the Wenzhou train crash in 2011 (see WiC117)(Contrary to wide-spread western reports，the trains involved were NOT high-speed trains，not according to Chinese standard or designation anyways。They were a pair of D-trains running on conventional old style tracks!!!）, the railway’s bosses have done an impressive job improving safety. There have been no fatalities on bullet trains since then, leading the New York Times to observe: “While the Wenzhou crash is still talked about in China today, statistics suggest that China’s high-speed trains have actually proved to be one of the world’s safest transportation systems so far.”
The trains have now carried 1.8 billion passengers since 2009, leading MIT mathematician Arnold Barnett to calculate that the “mortality-risk” equals or exceeds that of the world’s safest airlines.
The US newspaper also says that the bullet network is now carrying twice as many passengers as domestic airlines each month (and by next year will be handling more than 54 million people on a monthly basis).
In fact it’s the local airlines that now experience the worst PR. Usually the complaints are about the perennial flight delays, but earlier this month another type of incident dented the reputation of Air China, the country’s best-known carrier.
According to the People’s Daily, a flight from Korla to Beijing on October 6 was beset by a bout of mass food poisoning. One of the passengers who later fell ill noticed shortly after eating a beef pancake that it was beyond its expiry date. She told staff, but they said there was nothing they could do and carried on with the meal service. Within half an hour, two children were vomiting, 30 passengers were complaining of stomach ache, and long queues were forming for the toilets.
On touching down, one family was taken to a hospital and diagnosed with an ‘enteritis of unknown origin’.
After an investigation Air China said that the pancakes had not passed their expiry date, but that mistakes had been made and it apologised to passengers.
It’s the kind of story unlikely to attract new customers at a time when the airlines are already complaining that they are losing business to high-speed rail. In their first half results all three of China’s leading carriers blamed their sagging financials on the loss of passengers to bullet trains.
Speaking to CCTV, a senior executive with China Southern described the situation as “very challenging” adding that ticket prices had been slashed to meet the competitive threat. He then estimated that on any route of 800km or less, the airlines were vulnerable to losing half their passengers to the trains.
And according to the magazine New Fortune, 50% of flights on routes of less than 500km have already been cancelled by local airlines. For example, Shandong Airlines grounded its Jinan to Nanjing service after loads dropped from 100 passengers per plane to 30, reports China News Service.
One of the flagship routes – Beijing to Shanghai – is proving a particularly tough battlefield. Here the bullet train quickly started grabbing traffic after its launch in 2011. Travellers cite various benefits in letting the train take the strain. For one, it is far more likely to be on time – according to a report last month by Hong Kong Commercial Daily 82% of flights out of Beijing faced delays while a slightly less miserable 72% were late in Shanghai (it’s a subject we’ve touched on before, see WiC83).
Another plus: businesspeople can still use their mobile phones or send emails on the journey.
