China Eastern forms subsidiary Sanya International Airlines on 13 June 2020

Report by : Gan Yung Chyan

                   / KUCINTA SETIA

On 13 June 2020,  China Eastern Airlines Group signed a  strategic cooperation framework contract in Haikou with the Hainan Provincial Government. Under the agreement, China Eastern Airlines Co., Ltd., the core principal company of China Eastern Airlines Group, and the relevant partners formally signed the "Jointly Established Sanya International Airlines Co., Ltd. Cooperation Framework Agreement" to fully open China Eastern Airlines' service to Hainan Free Trade Port.

It is worth mentioning that as a landmark achievement of this strategic cooperation, Sanya International Airline has come into being. It is an airline based in Hainan absolutely controlled by China Eastern Airlines. It is jointly established with Hainan Transportation Investment Holdings Co., Ltd., Sanya Development Holdings Co., Ltd., Juneyao Air, and Ctrip Travel Network Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. 

Sanya International Airlines has excellent "genes" of large state-owned backbone airlines, excellent private airlines, global leading OTAs, and state-owned assets of Hainan's local state-owned enterprises. It will make full use of the comprehensive resource advantages of China Eastern Airlines and all shareholders, and make full use of the market-oriented mechanism to attract international crew members, management talents, and technical talents, give full play to the diversity and flexibility of shareholders, and create new routes. It will develop to create high-quality aviation service products, and build a fine aviation brand in Hainan.

Sanya International Airlines will be developed based on China Eastern's operations in Hainan.

As early as 1998, China Eastern Airlines Haikou Sales Department was established. In 2011, Sanya Sales Department of China Eastern was established. Especially in recent years, China Eastern has taken Hainan as an important part of the market map of the new era and has comprehensively accelerated its strategic resource investment in Hainan. It has regular flights to Haikou, Sanya, and Bo'ao, with an annual passenger traffic of nearly 3 million passengers.

At present, China Eastern has fully opened a new era of high-quality development stage, and strived to build a high-quality global aviation hub network to achieve new leap-forward development in serving the central and national strategies. 

The strengthening of strategic cooperation between China Eastern Airlines and Hainan Province with the establishment of the joint venture Sanya International Airlines are also the forging competitiveness of Hainan’s seventh freedom rights policy, which effectively integrates the Hainan market with China Eastern Airlines and Juneyao Air to connect with 170 countries and 1,036 cities.