China Eastern Airlines

Like, last minute.

Um, and I was like, "Sure, that could be amazing, but you know how much that's gonna cost." And, yeah, she was looking at, like, China Eastern was, like, w- even, like, it was, like, over a grand.

Yeah.

And it was like you feel like you're-

Airbus has delivered the first aircraft assembled at its second A320 final assembly line in Tianjin.

The aircraft is an A320neo received by China Eastern Airlines.

Since 2008, Airbus has delivered over 800 A320 aircraft from its Tianjin facility, underscoring deepening aviation cooperation.

China's Gravity-1 carrier rocket lifted off from waters off the coast of Shanghai on Wednesday morning, placing eight Constellation satellites and one ultra-high-speed wireless communication test satellite into orbit.

And then, so from Hong Kong, and this is where we went to Shanghai.

And so I booked our flights on China Eastern through Flying Blue, so, like, through Air France.

And they actually gave me the 25% award discount for the kids.

So that was interesting, because I thought, in my mind, I'm like, "Okay, this only works on Air France.

Like, I couldn't understand.

[laughs] Um, so w- using the points on that really worked out.

And d- I did originally have trouble finding, so to be able to, like, pick our seats, the China Eastern website was only in, like, Chinese.

And so then I'm, like, re- reading on, like, Reddit.

If we're looking at the Asia-Pacific earnings, you know, China is really quite the outlier.

And I would say that at least for the three biggest carriers, the big three, as I like to call them, The ones that were tracking Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines, they really are sort of the worst performing Asia Pacific carriers for the most recent earnings season.

And, you know, as you said earlier, it was really quite difficult for them to turn profitable coming out of the pandemic.

And we know that China was really one of the last few major markets to fully reopen and recover from the pandemic.

And if we look at their earnings, China Eastern and China Southern, they swung to operating losses for the six months ending 30 of June.

So last year, the first half of last year, they were profitable, which was quite a rare, I suppose, quite a rare occasion.

And then, of course, now this current half year, they're back in the red.

And Air China saw its losses worsen during the same period if you compare year on year.

Part two, Jay, we are crossing the Pacific and talking China, uh, looking at some of the financials that have come out of China's big three.

And for anyone that's new to the podcast or just needs a little bit of a, a sharpening up on China, we're th- talking around the big three, Air China, China Southern, and China Eastern.

Is that right?

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

And, uh, Air China in Beijing, China Eastern in Shanghai, China Southern in Guangzhou.

So all three just right...

If you go down the eastern coast of China, you'll more or less hit those three cities, and, uh, those are where those three airlines are based.

What we need in the South is to expand the development, make life easier for the Brazilian tourist or the South African tourist when they want to come, and then do the right promotion so they discover the interest that they have in experiencing these countries of the South.

And just then you, you were telling me you also had conversations with China Eastern Airlines about a, a line connecting China and Brazil.

Has this evolved in any how?

We have talked a lot with the people from China, and they are interested in operating a direct flight to Brazil with just one technical stop.

It is not a good time to be one of the big three Chinese airlines.

China Eastern, China Southern, and Air China all lost money.

China eastern and China southern moved from profit to loss in the first half of the year, and Air China's losses got worse.

It really all comes down to the fact that fuel is incredibly expensive now.

Yeah, expensive for everyone.

But at this point, the Chinese airlines are looking to expand their international route network because domestic just isn't cutting it for them anymore.

It's just not bringing in enough revenue.

The Reuters article we'll, we'll link to says that China Eastern says it expects to receive 13 fewer C919 deliveries than previously forecast between 2026 and 2028, so not even COMAC is immune to delivering far fewer aircraft than expected.