SHENANDOAH AIRLINES: United States (1968-1969). “Your Personal Airline,” Shenandoah Airlines is set up at Charlottesville, Virginia, in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley, in late summer 1968 to provide scheduled passenger and cargo services to regional destinations. Employing 1 each Beech 18 and B-80 Queenaire, daily roundtrips are inaugurated by the new commuter on September 16 linking the it’s base with Lynchburg, Washington, D. C. (IAD), Roanoke, and Baltimore.
Unable to achieve economic viability, the company is forced to shut down in 1969.
SHENZHEN AIRLINES COMPANY, LTD.: Lingtian Tian, Lingx-iao Garden, Shenzhen Airport, Shenzhen, 518128, China; Phone 86 (755) 777-7243; Fax 86 (755) 777-7242; Http://www. shenzenair. com; Code 4G; Year Founded 1994. Shenzhen Airlines is established at Shenzhen in Guangdong Province in early 1994 to offer scheduled regional passenger services, particularly to the local special economic zone. Ownership is divided between China Travel Services, CNAC-2, the Bank of China, and the Southern Tongfu Industrial Company. Operational oversight is vested with China Southern Airlines Company, Ltd.
Duan Dayang is appointed president and general manager and is provided with a pair of Boeing 737-3L1s. Revenue services commence on October 15 linking the company’s base with Beijing, Chengdu, Haikou, Hangzhou, Meixian, Nanjing, Shanghai, Wenzhou, Xiamen, Yantai, and Zengzhou.
Airline employment stands at 363 in 1995 as two leased B-737-37Ks are acquired. Enplanements total 580,700.
Forty new employees are hired in 1996 and two B-737-3K9s are chartered from Bavaria Fluggesellschaft mbH. & Co. Passenger boardings surge 26.5% to 790,000.
On May 8, 1997, Flight CZ3456, a company B-737-31B with 74 passengers and coming in from Chongqing in the central province of Sichuan, crashes during its landing at Shenzhen-Huangtian Airport on the border between Macau and Hong Kong. The plane veers off the runway, breaks into 3 pieces, and catches fire (35 dead). The disaster is the first major Chinese airline crash in three years.
For the third straight time, the airline is cited by air passengers as the best among large Chinese airlines that carry less than 2 million passengers annually. The survey, whose results are announced on July 17, had sent out a total of 1.33 million questionnaires concerning passengers opinions on the service quality of 25 airports and 16 major Chinese airlines. Other winners are China Eastern Airlines Company, Ltd. and Xiamen Airlines Company, Ltd., which each win first place in separate contests for the annual passenger volume exceeding 6 million and less than 3 million.
In September, Shenzhen, in line with Chinese government policy designed to reduce the number of regional airlines so as to increase the efficiency of competition, is one of six carriers to form the New Star Alliance. It is hoped that when activated on the following January 1, the informal pact will boost the quality of its members’ services via integrated passenger and marketing services and code-sharing on selected routes.
Enplanements during the 12 months total 851,304.
Service is maintained without fanfare during 1998. Passenger boardings climb 5.2% to 898,000, while cargo traffic accelerates 4.7% to 12.26 million FTKs.
A Chinese-language homepage is opened on the Internet at the end of 1999.
Overall enplanements during these 12 months fall to 659,000 while 1.84 million FTKs are operated.
The “classic” B-737 fleet at the beginning of 2000 includes 2 each Dash-3K9s and Dash-31Ls, plus 1 each Dash-3Q8 and Dash-33A. Two Next Generation B-737-79Ks are also flown and will be joined by two Next Generation B-737-78Ss on August 25 and September 15, respectively.
Reacting to rising fuel costs, on November 1 the CAAC (The General Administration of Civil Aviation of China) grants the nation’s 34 airlines permission to raise ticket prices by 15% to balance passenger traffic and avgas costs; 23 companies, including Shenzhen increase fares on November 5.
A third Next Generation B-737-78S is delivered on December 20.
World History
