brunos

Chinese airlines might give it a try as they are adventurous in opening new destinations. That is a problem for AF as their ST partners are also competitors. By opening new European destinations, they reduce the transfer traffic through CDG/AMS. NCE could be an interesting destination for ST Chinese airlines as they could leverage their partnership with AF.
On the otehr hand, CX has been conservative for many years (they are just opening ZRH and MAN). They do not even serve Spain. The delivery of smaller jets might improve the odds of opening some destinations. But CX has entered an extensive partnership with QR and that partnership makes a lot of sense for NCE.

San Gottardo

... and also - of all places - Dusseldorf.

orbitmic

I agree, however much I would LOVE to see it open, I can't imagine CX doing that. They also tend to do nonstop flights (otherwise I could imagine tag on their MXP flight which seems to often have empty seats).

I must say that I was surprised CX opened MAN of all places but I certainly wouldn't think that NCE would be on their "next to do" list unfortunately. As you say though, MU or CZ could be a different story as they are expanding fast and as you say adventurous.

San Gottardo

Or Hainan. They seem to be going to the "more surprising" places, i.e. not only the large alliance hubs. They fly/flew to Berlin, Brussels, Zurich

orbitmic

Good point!

orbitmic

Just saw this and thought it would be a fun addition to our discussion on the Chinese "crave" for the Nice area

http://www.nicematin.com/nice/les-ga...s.2207834.html

brunos

Some airports and regions are working hard to woo foreign tourists.
That is clearly the case to attract European LCCs. No doubt that Nice works hard on Chinese tourists. Providing incentives for a Chinese airline to fly direct to NCE could be in the work.

orbitmic

Indeed, as the French saying goes (and this shouldn't be interpreted as derogative in any way), "on n'attrape pas les mooches avec du vinaigre". I think that NCE has been pretty good at "targeting" emerging markets. They did a great job at the time of the Russian boom (up to 3 daily to SVO, plus daily flights to DME and LED, not to mention "satellite" country destinations including KBP, MSQ, and of course Baltic destination. Now that Russia is going through a serious crisis, I'd expect them to be trying to sweeten the offer for a Chinese airline and just hope that rights will be given without issue. I knew Chinese tourists tended to spend a lot but when I saw the average figures I'll admit that I was a bit surprised/shocked. Comes a point when India and Latin America will probably become strong markets to try and capture too.

brunos

A lot of Russians own property in NCE and it is also an easy holiday destination for a few days. I wonder whether this will be true for China. My guess is that Chinese tourists tend to "tour" around Europe/France. That is a different type of pax.

stimpy

You are absolutely right about that. The Russians have been buying property along the Riviera for at least 20 years now.

And yes most Chinese are tourists, but an exception would be the wealthy Chinese who buy castles in Burgundy or come over for extensive shopping trips. For instance the annual Hospices de Beaune auction has attracted a huge number of Chinese visitors in the last few years. Maybe LYS hopes there is a knock on effect. Even if the super wealthy fly private, they go home and show off their Burgundy wares and that leads to more Chinese visiting Burgundy. The numbers are increasing year by year and if that continues we'll reach a tipping point where a Chinese airline flies to LYS. Beaune is quite a long drive from CDG.

You may have seen in the news that a Chinese billionaire has decided to send 6400 employees to France on holiday. That isn't an accident.

orbitmic

True but the causation is not unidirectional here: many Russians have bought property around the Cote d'Azur, but while this started as early as the opening of the Soviet Union, it really boomed after SU opened its direct line. Now that they are on 2-3 daily (depending on the day) to SVO plus the other Russian flights, there has been an increasing number of upper middle class (as opposed to super rich) Russian families actually settling down in Nice or its area with the "breadwinner" flying to Moscow Monday-Friday and returning to NCE while the rest of the family lives in Nice permanently.

This allows great regular traffic, but regular tourists from the area also are numerous. In fact, flights are so busy that SU has always refused to open any seats for codesharing.

You are also right that Chinese tourists are mostly "touring" but again, there also seems to be an increasing addition of more thematic travel including "wedding travel" which is mostly travel agency organised. Even the touring seems to be largely travel-agency organised so again, in and by itself can open the door to route openings as I guess it makes it helpful to multiply entry points and negotiate tickets directly with the tour operators.

brunos

I was only pointing out that there were different types of markets. NCE will have to be doing original thinking to capture that Chinese market as competition is ferocious and its comparative advantage is not strong. I fully share your analysis though.

I cannot talk about about LYS, but NCE had several waves of foreign airlines. Unfortunately for AF, they have shown little interest in developing a base at NCE (they tried but nit very hard), so the whole market has primarily been captured by foreign airlines.

Just thinking about "remote" markets. No need to elaborate on the past ME interest in the French Riviera, with EK and QR flying there. The DL daily flight to JFK shows that there is a US market. The Chinese market is quite different in nature as we discussed above. Chinese tourists will be attracted to a Chinese airline for cultural reasons. But a problem is that there are so many top-tier and second-tier Chinese cities. Beijing and Shanghai are far away and TAs might prefer a PVG-CDG-NCE flight than a PVG-PEK-NCE. And there are 170 Chinese cities of more than one million. Hopefully, the NCE region will use some marketing people who are well versed in Chinese culture/language and in economics Negotiations will be tough and long, as usual with China.

brunos

SOme more pictures of the same group in the Chinese press:
http://www.scmp.com/news/article/179...-nears-its-end

nicolas75

3 months a year

You need not only to be a destination, but also an outbound market to be profitable (and air freight market is generally a plus).

Remember that NCE has currently lower traffic than... Malaga, where I did not see an Emirates plane on the tarmac.

brunos

Indeed, NCE total traffic does not make it a major destination, but I will stick to my "large destination". And you do see an Emirate plane on the tarmac daily. Soon to be joined by a QR plane. DL seems quite happy with the traffic.
Longhaul (LH) requires premium traffic and the NCE region provides that inbound and outbound. The NCE region is quite large and wealthy and NCE attracts pax from Monaco and Italy.
That being said, I would be surprised if NCE gets other LH airlines beyond ME3. I doubt that there be enough permanent PtP traffic for any destinations.