I thought I’d continue the international flavor this week with a post on one of the biggest air travel market openings in ages. Last summer, relations thawed enough for China and Taiwan to allow a very limited number of direct flights between the two with the promise of more to come. On August 31, the real flood began as the first regularly scheduled (non-charter) flights started between the two countries. It’s not often that we see a huge market open up like this, so it’s certainly fun to watch.

Up until the 31st of August, there were 108 weekly roundtrip charter flights permitted between China and Taiwan. Everything else had to go through a third location, usually Hong Kong. On August 31, that number ballooned to 270, and for the first time, they can now be operated as regularly scheduled flights.

The incredible size of this market is hard to grasp. Though Taiwan may seem like a small island, there are nearly 23 million people living on it, and most of them have strong ties to China and its 1.3 billion people. So on one side, we have an island with a population larger than the entire state of New York and on the other side, we have a country four times larger than the US. On August 31, there were 44 flights that operated, but as you can imagine there is going to be room for a lot more in the years to come. Hopefully further liberalization will happen.

Sixteen airlines were given permission to fly between China and Taiwan. Sixteen?!? That’s just unreal. And more than 20 cities in China will have service to Taiwan.

Air China will have 27 weekly roundtrips and they’ll fly from Taipei to Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou and Tianjian. Meanwhile, EVA Air and UNI Air will fly 55 weekly roundtrips between three Taiwanese airports and Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Kunming, Xiamen, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Dalian, Ningbo, Chengdu and Qingdao, Wuhan, and Chongqing. This is just unreal that this is all happening overnight.

Like I said, we don’t see this every day. The next time we can expect to see something close is probably when Cuba finally opens up for travel to the US. The populations are certainly smaller, but the propensity to fly is likely greater.

It may not be cool to everyone (despite my title), but a handful of new long haul routes have been introduced lately, and I think it’s worth a post. Here they are in no particular order (ok, it’s actually the order the stories were opened in my browser’s tabs).

• This morning, Delta announced they’ll be starting nonstop flights from Atlanta to Lagos (Nigeria) on December 3 with 767-300 aircraft. I’m not so sure this one will actually fly though. Continental announced plans to fly there previously (lots of oil out there), but a fight between the US, British, and Nigerian governments (don’t ask) didn’t allow Continental to start. Will this be different?
• On Feb 20, Air France said they’d begin flying daily between Paris/de Gaulle and Seattle from June 11 on A330-200 aircraft. This one starts to make sense as the airline strengthens its SkyTeam alliance ties. Northwest has a strong presence in Seattle (partner KLM already flies nonstop to Amsterdam), and an additional frequent flier agreement with Alaska Airlines should help as well.
• Air China launched what I consider to be a very odd route – Beijing to Sao Paulo twice a week with a stop in Madrid on 767s. I have no doubt there’s a great deal of traffic between Sao Paulo and China, but why Madrid? Air China has the right to sell tickets between Madrid and Sao Paulo, so maybe they thought they could fill up their plane that way. You will find them consistently less expensive than Iberia, which also flies the route nonstop.
• Air New Zealand said this morning they’ll fly three 777s a week between Auckland and Vancouver. This will only operate during the southern summer – November 2 through March 28. They’ve said they want to start a new city each year, and this is an interesting one. I imagine if it does well they’ll extend it year round.