BANK of China (BOC) and UnionPay International yesterday introduced the BOC UnionPay Travel Card for South-east Asian travellers, providing access to UnionPay’s payment networks and a host of travel discounts across the world.

With the support of the China National Tourism Administration, the card has been rolled out in Singapore as a credit card, in Malaysia as a pre-paid card and in Vietnam as a debit card.

It will also be launched in other South-east Asian countries within the next 12 months.

Cardholders will be granted access to UnionPay’s network of international payments and BOC’s renminbi cross-border clearance ability.

The card also entails them to discounts for tickets to over 700 places of interest in China as well as exclusive dining, shopping, entertainment and car rental offers from more than 1,000 Chinese merchants and over 5,000 international merchants.

Singapore cardholders can also avail of 14 Plaza Premium airport lounges across the world, a 10 per cent rebate at department stores OG and BHG, and double rewards points on all overseas expenditure.

BOC executive vice president, Zhu Shumin, said: “The economic and trade relations between China and countries in South-east Asia have strengthened over the last few years.

“Meanwhile, the number of visitors to China from South-east Asia is growing as well. Between January and September this year, over 2.4 million people visited China from Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. The BOC Travel Card is designed to meet their needs.”

YET another full-service airline has declared its intention to set up an LCC arm, with the latest challenger being Taiwan-based privately owned TransAsia Airways.

Singapore’s The Straits Times reported that TransAsia is the first operator to have bagged formal approval from Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration since the Taiwanese government reduced the prerequisite to establishing an airline from NT$10 billion (US$338.2 million) to NT$6 billion in annual revenue.

The new LCC’s name is currently the subject of a contest. Tentatively called People’s Airways, the carrier will be wholly owned by TransAsia and is expected to launch operations within a year.

Flights will be operated with Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft to destinations within a five-hour radius of Taiwan, said the newspaper report .

TransAsia’s announcement brings it head-to-head with government-linked China Airlines, which has said it will launch a low-cost subsidiary by the end of 2013 (TTG Asia e-Daily, November 19, 2013).

DALIAN will become the sixth city offering 72-hour, visa-free transits via Zhoushuizi International Airport, according to online sources.

This has been reported on websites such as the World Civil Aviation Resource Net and TravelChinaGuide.com, an online tour operator.

Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Chongqing already offer such a facility to international visitors from 45 countries.

In order to be granted visa-free access into China, travellers must have confirmed interline tickets and valid visas to the third country or region.

THE Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) is welcoming membership applications from more Asian airlines with scheduled international services and is “very keen” to woo major Chinese carriers to join its ranks, said its director general.

AAPA has already widened the geographical limits of its membership criteria to carriers based within the time zones of GMT+5 to GMT+12 earlier this year from GMT+7 to GMT+12.

Said AAPA director general, Andrew Herdman, during the AAPA 57^th Assembly of Presidents in Hong Kong: “We have good relations with CAAC (Civil Aviation Administration of China) and CATA (China Air Transport Association).”

He added that a few Chinese airlines participated in the assembly this year.

AAPA is also open to engagement with South Asian airlines as its recently redrawn geographical coverage now includes India and Pakistan, Herdman shared, although the Federation of Indian Airlines and the Indian aviation market have a “primarily more domestic focus”.

When questioned on the lack of LCC members in AAPA, Herdman remarked: “We are certainly open to LCCs – any business model is welcomed.”

However, the caveat is that any new airline member is required to invest the “time, efforts and attention”, which comes in the form of membership fees – the figure ranges but reaches a few hundred thousand dollars per airline at the top end – and participation in meetings and taskforces to develop positions and joint lobbying with the secretariat, he pointed out.

As for plans to include the budget offshoots of its member airlines, Herdman said: “We view those subsidiaries and associates as de facto members anyway; they are unable to attend the meetings and their parent companies share information. We have thought about additional incremental costs (for those LCC subsidiaries), which will be very modest and we won’t expect them to pay an individual share.”

CONTINUOUS growth from China is expected to drive rate increases in Asia-Pacific (APAC) across most categories of the business travel industry in the coming year, according to American Express Global Business Travel (AMEX GBT) Forecast 2014.

Andi Budd, vice president and general manager of Amex GBT for Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan, said: “While growth is slowing in some (specific) countries, Asia-Pacific is leading the rest of the world in terms of economic growth.

“Business travel is still a priority in this region and rates are likely to rise modestly across air, hotel and ground transport in 2014.”

APAC air routes will experience sustained demand next year and published airfares will likely increase in most countries, with the exception of Australia, China and Japan.

Hotel rates are expected to rise along with the region’s ongoing economic growth and supply is not expected to outstrip demand in most locations, with the exception of India.

Budd said Singapore remains as one of the top destinations for the rapidly growing base of Chinese tourists, adding: “We expect high-end hotel prices to remain largely unaffected. However, more mid-tier properties continue to open to capture some of the increased demand.”

The full 2014 forecast with further insights on airfares, hotel and car rental rates in APAC and other regions is available on the American Express Global Business Travel website.

Separately, American Express had in September announced plans to sell 50 per cent of its Global Business Travel (GBT) division to an investor group led by Certares International Bank.

Budd said there will be no potential changes from the joint venture, save for a “greater expansion” of the GBT business. The exact investment amount by Certares is expected to be unveiled in January 2014, while the joint venture will likely kick off in May, he added.

IN VIEW of a looming capacity constraint that is approaching faster than projected, Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) has embarked on a combination of mid- and long-term expansion strategies to cope with future demand.

“We are close to the movement ceiling,” said Tommy Leung, general manager of projects at HKIA, during his presentation of the airport’s development plans at the recent Association of Asia Pacific Airlines 57^th Assembly of Presidents in Hong Kong.

“Our HKIA Master Plan 2030 predicted HKIA’s two-runway system to reach saturation point between 2019 and 2022, but based on 2012 traffic volumes we are ahead of forecast by two to three years,” he added, emphasising the need for the airport to speed up its expansion projects.

According to Leung, HKIA’s annual passenger traffic has grown by close to 100 per cent to 56.6 million in 2012, up from 28.6 million in 1998 when the airport first opened. Likewise, air traffic movements per year have increased 115 per cent from 163,000 to 352,000 during the same period, he revealed.

In addition to the expansion of Terminal 2, due to complete by this year-end, HKIA has already started on the HK$10.2 billion (US$1.3 billion) midfield development project, which will see the airport island’s last piece of land developed to include a 105,000m² concourse and 20 parking stands by 2015, raising the airport’s handling capacity by a further 10 million a year.

For the longer term, HKIA will adopt a three-runway system to accommodate 100 million passengers and 620,000 flight movements a year. A 3.8km third runway and passenger concourses with approximately 60 air bridges and apron to accommodate 100 parking stands will be built on a 650-hectare reclaimed land, which lies to the north of the existing 1,200-hectare airport island.

Both the automated people mover network and baggage handling system will be extended to connect the new concourses with the existing terminals and passenger facilities.

However, despite the proliferation of LCC terminals in Asia, Leung sees remote possibility in Hong Kong developing such a dedicated facility due to the city’s severe land constraints. “Every inch of reclamation has to be justified. We’re not like Singapore with land reserves,” he said.