About Air China

Home > About Us > About Air China

Air China Limited is commonly abbreviated to "Air China". Its predecessor, the former Air China, was founded in 1988 and according to the "Civil Aviation System Reform Program" was approved and passed by the State Council in October 2002. The former Air China then consolidated with China National Aviation Company and China Southwest Airlines and the China Aviation Group Company was founded. With the joint resources of the three joined parties, the new Air China Company was established. On September 30th, 2004, Air China Limited was officially launched from Beijing and began to operate air transport services as its main business controlled by China Aviation Group. This was approved by the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of State Council (SASAC). On December 15th, 2004, Air China successfully listed in Hong Kong (SEHK: 0753) and London (LSE: AIRC).

The corporate logo of Air China is made up of an artistic phoenix pattern, the Chinese name of the airline written in calligraphy by former national leader Deng Xiaoping, and “AIR CHINA” in English. The Phoenix logo is also the artistic transfiguration of the word “VIP”. The logo takes the traditional Chinese colour of red, which implies luck, peace and happiness and represents Air China's sincere passion to serve society and its endless pursuit of a reliable and safe operation.

Air China’s vision and orientation is as “a well-established airline around the world”, realizing the four strategic objectives: leading competitor in the world, continuously developing potential, excellent and distinguished travel experiences for passengers and steadily increasing profits. Its spirit of enterprise emphasizes "serve the world with a warm heart and guide the future by innovation". Its enterprise mission is to "meet the requirements of customers and create mutual values to the company aims to "create a high level of service and achieve universal approval from the public". Air China’s service philosophy is "Credibility, Convenience, Comfort and Choice".

Air China is China's national flag carrier for civil aviation and a member of Star Alliance – the world's largest airline alliance, and the official airline partner of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. It ranks first in brand value among domestic airlines (the World Brand Laboratory evaluated it as RMB 47.856 billion in 2011) and it leads the market over its domestic competitors in terms of passenger and freight air transport and related services.

Air China takes responsibility of special flights when Chinese national leaders travel abroad and also when other foreign leaders and governmental leaders visit China. This responsibility demonstrates the company’s exclusive status as the national flag carrier. With headquarters in Beijing, Air China has several branch offices and company operations in areas such as the Southwest, Zhejiang, Chongqing, Inner Mongolia, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hubei and Guizhou, and Tibet. Furthermore, Air China operates a base in Southern China, an Engineering & Technology branch and a business jet plane branch.

The main subsidiaries of Air China are Air China Cargo Co., Ltd., Air Macau Co, Ltd, Shenzhen Airlines, etc. and its major joint venture is with Aircraft Maintenance & Engineering Corporation (Ameco). Air China also holds shares of Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. and Shandong Airlines. It is the biggest stockholder of Shandong Aviation Group Co. Ltd. Beijing. Air Catering Co., Ltd. once controlled by Air China, now operates as a subsidiary of China National Aviation Co., Ltd. It was established on May 1, 1980 in Beijing as the first joint venture launched after the issuance of the “Law of The People’s Republic of China on Chinese-Foreign Contractual Joint Ventures”.

As of December 31, 2010, Air China (including holding companies) owns 393 Airbus and Boeing aircraft, with scheduled flights covering 29 countries and regions worldwide. These include 47 international cities, 91 domestic cities and three regions. Through cooperation with Star Alliance member airlines, its service network will be further extended to 1,160 destinations of 181 countries.

Air China is committed to providing passengers with the "Four Cs" service of Credibility, Convenience, Comfort and Choice. Air China PhoenixMiles, a frequent flyer program, has the longest history in China. Air China is the first domestic civil airline to launch "Forbidden Pavilion" First class and "Capital Pavilion" Business class, the two premium class services on medium-to-long distance flights featuring "lie-flat seats" and an "entire journey distinguished service" experience, which provides the passengers with comfortable and convenient travel space and considerate service. Air China enjoys a strong domestic and international transport connection capacity and sales network, owns an extensive high-quality client group and has become the first choice for many clients from Chinese governmental organizations and companies. Its frequent flyer members reached over 15 million by the end of 2010.

Air China has a team of pilots and stewards with excellent skills in the business technology working style and customer service areas. The award-winning Air China pilot team has received many prizes such as the "ICAO Medal of Honor ", "National Safe Production Advanced Unit", and the "Pilot Example of Safe Flight". The team has created the world-class flight safety record: completing a successful polar flight and creating a spotless flight safety record for 45 years (starting from1965) on the Chengdu - Lhasa route, once regarded as a "restricted air zone" by the international civil aviation industry and known worldwide for its difficulty to conduct flight operations. Air China performed successful night flights on this route in 2008. Its cabin crew team is made up of international crew members from Japan, Korea and Germany who are professional and dedicated. They consistently put forward the "Four Cs" service of Credibility, Convenience, Comfort and Choice. Their service quality has been well acclaimed by passengers.

The aircraft of Air China enjoy both specialized and standardized technical support. Air China has set-up an Engineering & Technology branch with Beijing as its headquarters, and consists of 9 maintenance bases (in Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Hohhot, Shanghai, Guiyang, Wuhan, Guangzhou), 4 affiliate enterprises, 88 domestic maintenance sites and 73 international maintenance sites, forming a maintenance network in its domestic and international markets. Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Corporation (Ameco Beijing), China's first and largest aircraft maintenance company set up as a joint venture in aviation, was established on May 2, 1989. The Air China aircraft department has received maintaining licenses issued by CAAC, FAA, EASA and other 18 countries, including 7 major hangars together with advanced equipment and facilities. With their excellent maintenance strength, they have won Air China the approval and trust from more than 80 airlines in the world. Since the end of 1980s until now, the Air China aircraft department has achieved nearly 20 breakthroughs in domestic maintenance and more than 50 scientific and technological progress awards issued by national and provincial ministries.

Air China is promoting an integrated operation with a robust operational control capacity. Air China flights around the world are under the control of the organizing and coordinating center. Computer flight planning systems collect information from aircraft performance databases, the global navigation database, the global airport databases and high altitude weather databases, so as to optimize flight routes, develop flight plans, check aircraft performance, verify flight qualifications and perform strict fight controls before take-off. Air China has developed its own operation and management system, integrated with the satellite telephone system, air-ground data communication system and short-wave radio system, and became the first domestic airline with the ability of remote monitoring.

Air China operates at the Beijing Capital International Airport offering a variety of ground services including passengers' entry, departure and transit services, special passenger services, the two-class services ("Forbidden Pavilion" First Class and "Capital Pavilion" Business Class), passenger luggage services, aircraft load balancing service, flight departure system service, tarmac load and unload services, cabin cleaning services and special equipment maintenance. Air China was also the first domestic airline to open self-service check-in and self-service baggage check-in, and the first airline to autonomously allocate part of the slots of the terminal as the ground transportation support department. In addition, Air China was the first to implement the “center loading distribution” business, and has enabled the “center loading distribution” business in 67 domestic terminals making it the first domestic airline using the "center loading distribution" work mode. Currently, Air China’s ground service supports nearly 940 departing and arriving flights each day in Beijing, up to 1,026 flights on peak days, and 79 flights during peak hours. With a variety of ground service equipment and facilities, over 2,300 special vehicles and related assets exceeding RMB 900 million (original cost value), it is the aviation ground service department with the largest scale and strongest capacity in China’s civil airline industry.

Air China values personnel training. Its pilot training center has world-class training facilities, training level and scale doubled with an excellent instructor team, rich teaching experience and first-class training equipment. Based at Tianjin Binhai International Airport, the center applies the most advanced real-plane training mode with one Boeing 737-300 plane dedicated for pilot training. The center assumes the training and management of newly employed pilots of Air China. Its steward training center is the first large-scale multi-function training base for stewards in China. The instructors in the center have the title of top grade stewards, IATA teaching qualification and instructor qualification approved by IATA CRM training. The center has trained more than 80,000 students for nearly 40 domestic and foreign airlines. It has also offered training services for many other sectors that have been attracted by its superb level of teaching. Moreover, the University of Air China is under construction, which will be a large-scale modern training base with a thorough academic education.

Air China’s management has been improved significantly with increased profitability for seven consecutive years from 2001 to 2007, and leads the civil aviation industry in China, bringing more value to the brand. From 2007 to 2010 Air China was listed in "top 500 global brands” for four consecutive years, becoming the only Civil Aviation airline listed ever. In June 2011, Air China was rated 24th in China's 500 most valuable brands by the World Brand Laboratory - and the first in the domestic aviation service sector. From 2004 to 2008, Air China consecutively earned the "Customer Satisfaction Award" and the "Customer Satisfaction Gold Award". The Air China brand has been jointly awarded as one of "China's Top Ten International Brands" by the Financial Times of Great Britain and American McKinsey Management Consulting Company. It has been ranked as the "Best Chinese Airline" by industry magazines such as Business Journey and TTG for three consecutive years. It has won the title of "Top 25 Exemplary Brand of China--Brand China Huapu Annual Award" in the selection of brand China. In 2010, Air China earned both the "Chinese Brand Annual Award No.1 (Air Service Sector)" and the "Chinese Culture Brand Award" by the World Brand Laboratory. In addition, Air China was named in various ranking lists as "Best Chinese Airline ", "Airline of the Year", "Pathfinder Award", "Best Corporate Image Award" and "Top Ten Chinese Economy Leader“.

Air China actively engages in its social responsibilities, and always takes public responsibility as a top priority that is integral to its operation. Through its own sustainable development, Air China creates stable tax revenues and job opportunities for the country, actively participates in social practice and disaster relief and makes great contributions to society. Air China's leadership has been awarded as "Great Example of Building 'Team of Four Highlights' in National State-owned Enterprises" by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee and the SAC Party Committee. Air China, together with China Children and Teenagers’ Fund, co-sponsored the establishment of "Children's Insurance Special Fund" for the healthy growth of children and adolescents in China. Air China accomplished the task with excellence to serve and support the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, setting many new records in Chinese civil aviation history. On September 29, 2008, the Party Central Committee and State Council held a grand rally at the Great Hall to conclude the Beijing Olympic Games and Paralympic Games and gave out awards. Air China was honored as an "Advanced Unit in Beijing Olympics and Paralympics". During a variety of major natural disasters at home and abroad, as well as emergency transport missions, Air China has organized immediate transportation and performed its responsibility as a state-owned business no matter the cost. For instance, efforts to combat the "SARS" outbreak in 2003, efforts to combat the snow in Wenchan in early 2008, the Yushu earthquake relief in 2008 and the 2009 Haiti earthquake relief, the 2010 Japan tsunami disaster relief in and chartered flights for the emergency evacuation of Chinese personnel in Libya in 2011. All of these examples demonstrate the brand image of a central government-controlled enterprise.