First things first. I know nothing about China Southern Airlines. It was just a good counter-example for an argument about passenger load in this case.

Secondly, the logic of passenger load and language preference (i.e. English speakers) doesn't hold too much water on FT (see the preliminary data in my next paragraph.)

The hard data on FT doesn't support your "conclusion."

I just used FT Search to compare "RyanAir" and "China Southern" in all fora on FT. The result may surprise you:

1. Using "RyanAir" as key word, I found 498 threads. When requesting "Show Results as Posts", there are currently 493 posts on FT that contain "RyanAir." (A bit odd since post number shouldn't be smaller than thread number but what can I say. It's FT Search. )

2. With key words of "China Southern", I found 497 FT threads. When using "Show Results as Posts", more than 500 posts mentioned "China Southern" on FT. Since FT search results cap at 500 hits, we don't know the actual number of posts for China Southern on FT. It could be 1000, 5000, or even 10K.

Not to mention China Southern (CZ) a member of the SkyTeam airline alliance.

To sum up:
Post Count: RyanAir (=493) vs. China Southern (>>500)
Thread Count: RyanAir (=498) vs. China Southern (=497)

So, what do these numbers tell us? It shows demand on FT, to say at least.

I am not necessarily against new forum for a deserving airline (or destination). I just think the supporters/advocates should do a better job to provide convincing data or sounder arguments that will cater to the core mission of FT. I would think that's the merits in the proposals that could win more support from TBers.