Air China, the world's largest carrier by market capitalisation and also the world's most profitable airline, begins inflight wifi trials on a Boeing 737-800 flight departing from the Beijing Capital Airport tomorrow. As soon as it receives approval from regulators, it will begin rolling out the service starting from its domestic flights. And the best part of it all is, they're not looking to charge us a single cent for it! more ›

China has sent four planes to Egypt to evacuate Chinese travelers stranded in the Cairo airport. There were 480 citizens waiting at the airport to be picked up, and the first plane departed from Cairo this morning (an Air China flight) with 265 passengers on board. Over 2000 Chinese citizens are currently traveling in Egypt, and China has announced plans to send at least four more planes. One will be specifically destined for Luxor, where 200 Hong Kong tourists are waiting to be picked up. The Chinese government has said they are trying to bring as many nationals home as possible in time for Chinese New Year. more ›

Cell phone rage could soon be coming to a flight near you: Three Chinese airlines have signed deals to allow in flight cell phone usage. Air China, China South and China East are beginning preparations to allow passengers to use their cells mid flight in order to offer services offered by competing airlines throughout Europe, Africa and America. The set price per minute: 15 yuan! more ›

Shanghai-based carrier China Eastern Airlines has officially joined SkyTeam ahead of the Shanghai Expo, ending months of speculation over which global alliance it would join. The move leaves OneWorld the only major airline network without a mainland Chinese partner as Beijing-based Air China is a part of the Star Alliance, and Guangzhou-based China Southern is also a member of SkyTeam. Shanghai Airlines, before its anti-competitive takeover by merger with China Eastern, was also a member of the Star Alliance, but it may have to withdraw membership now that China Eastern has joined SkyTeam. more ›

Those two suspected cases we told you about this morning have now been confirmed! That means that Shanghai has now gotten its first swine flu victim. The 30-year-old who arrived from Australia on Saturday was hustled straight to the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center after registering at 38.8 degrees upon getting off the plane. He had first started experiencing symptoms, including runny nose and fever, three days before his flight. 24 people who were in close contact with him on the plane are now under quarantine and the Shanghai government is on the look out for 20 more passengers that ought to be under observation as well. If you were on or know anyone who was on the Air China CA178 flight from Melbourne on Saturday, please contact authorities now by calling 12320. Source: Shanghai Daily more ›

China Eastern's chairman Li Fenghua (李丰华) has been replaced by Liu Shaoyong (刘绍勇), chairman of rival China Southern Airlines in what's been described as a "government-orchestrated industry shake-up". There is no news on where Li Fenghua is off to next but we're curious because this was the guy that had earlier bitterly vowed that China Eastern would "never consider Air China as a strategic investor" after Air China blocked Singapore Airline's proposed HK$7 billion bid for a 24% stake in China Eastern. The management shakeup has piqued the interest of the Chinese business press. Some have speculated that Li is moving on to some new position in the State Council but this remains quite unlikely. As an anonymous insider revealed to the Securities Daily 《证券日报》, Li presided over China Eastern's worst performance ever, and bears some responsibility for losses of up to RMB5 billion in fuel-hedging. For that, Li may be sent off to "idle" at some work unit for some time before being "audited and reviewed" for his performance. more ›

Air China, China Eastern and China Southern have dispatched special charter flights to bring home stranded Chinese tourists caught in Bangkok during the recent anti-government protests there. more ›

Xinhua: British PM visits Shanghai more ›

77% of China Eastern shareholders have voted against Singapore Airline's proposed HK$7 billion bid for a 24% stake in it. Disappointed by the results of the vote, China Eastern chairman Li Fenghua has vowed not to ally with Air China:

"We will never consider Air China as a strategic investor. The most important thing is not the price. The most important thing is to improve China Eastern Airlines' brand and management." more ›

Looks like the much talked-about HK$7 billion bid by Singapore Airlines and its parent Temasek Holdings for a 24% stake in Shanghai's loss-making and debt-laden China Eastern Airlines may not happen just yet. Blocking the bid is its arch-rival and shareholder, Air China, as well as its parent China National Aviation Corp. (CNAC), which has now upped the ante by saying it would bid no less than HK$5 per share if shareholders vote against Singapore Airlines' HK$3.8 offer. more ›

From Shanghai Daily:

SHANGHAI issued an orange alert for heavy fog this morning. It was the first orange fog warning since winter began early this month. more ›

Air transport AFP: Air China, Shanghai Airlines join Star Alliance XFN: China Eastern says partnership with Singapore Airlines, Temasek 'only option' AFP: Singapore Airlines says won't raise China Eastern bid Finance Reuters: U.S. says China recognises need for stronger yuan NYT: Little Headway With China on Finance FT: Beijing lectures US on effect of weak dollar Drugs, drugs and drugs AP: China Shuts Down Leukemia Drug Maker Xinhua: China issues new drug recall method... more ›

Comments below don’t necessarily represent the Shanghaiist’s point of view or opinion regarding the Canadian government (we don't want them to hold a grudge and kick us out of Canada too!)… we just received it recently from the Busdriver promoter and thought it was kind of funny… shows are still on in Beijing and Shanghai…..and we are as giddy as a school boy in the girls locker room to see Busdriver play live! more ›

Cathay Pacific and Air China's parent company abandoned an attempt to block Singapore Airlines from buying a stake in China Eastern, as the battle for the lucrative Chinese market heats up. more ›

In other Shanghaiist news, our favourite media blog Danwei has offered your correspondent a very special Toilet Bowl Award as part of their recent Model Worker's Awards for "posting regularly about news that no one else is finding, and translating some of the more interesting stuff on the Chinese Internet". We have also been singled out for our "excellent contribution to the toilet sector, for the posts Shanghai artist's Nike poo, and especially for the video displayed at this page: New bidet that doubles as enema and colon cleanser." We wish we could take all the credit for it but the first story came in as a tip while the second one was a quite a boo-boo on our part. We've actually since unpublished the post (but somehow it still appears), reason being, one of our colleagues already wrote about it earlier this year. Anyhow, we shall graciously accept our toilet bowl and promise to polish it religiously. more ›

Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and Singapore Airline’s joint bid for a 24 percent stake of China Eastern Airline finally received its blessing from Beijing last week. The deal valued CEA at HK$3.80 per share. China Eastern’s Hong Kong listing after a three month halt resumed trading earlier today and promptly doubled from HK$ 3.73 to HK$ 7.50 before paring back to settle around HK$ 6.90 in the afternoon. Today’s surge in gave the two new investors an instant HK$5.84 billion profit on paper, about USD $750 million. Not bad for a day’s work! Shares of all four major Chinese airlines (the other three are Air China, China Southern and Hainan Air) traded on the domestic exchange rallied 10 percent on the news, the maximum daily limit allowed under local rules. In related news, the Shanghai Composite Index closed at another a record high, up 102 points, or 2 percent, at 5321. more ›

Lost Laowai brings our attention to the following soundbyte of a conversation between an Air China pilot and the control tower of the JFK Airport in New York. In it, the pilot fails to understand anything that the traffic controller was saying and his English was so garbled that he might as well have been speaking in Esperanto -- a language that is deemed so important that China Radio International's website has a version in it! more ›

Not content with making cars and computers for the world, China is now on to its next big thing -- aircraft. The long-awaited ARJ-21 (pictured here) is China's very first homegrown commercial aircraft and has been launched amid much fanfare by the aircraft maker AVIC I. Now only a name is lacking, and if you can come up with a creative Chinese name of between two and four Chinese characters before September 28, RMB50,000 will be yours! (Sorry apparently English names are worth nothing). more ›

Shanghaiist is somewhat of a frequent flyer to Beijing, and because he isn't employed by some big multinational but rather runs his own little business, he can only afford to put himself on cattle class and often has to scour the internet for the cheapest available deals. We especially love this nifty little function on eLong.com which shows you the cheapest available flight within a week of your selected departure date. That has worked to our advantage in the past because we have relatively flexible schedules, and we have flown to Beijing for as low as RMB530 (that's RMB400 for the ticket and RMB130 for miscellaneous taxes) on Hainan Airlines. more ›

The last time we heard from Air China, it was hit by an embarrassing spate of accidents. Not so long afterwards, it announced an order for 15 units of the new Boeing 767 Dreamliner. This time, Air China has proclaimed its ambitions to grow its market share in Beijing from the existing 44% up to 50%. more ›

Photo from ojour. more ›

Air China has been hit by a spate of minor accidents lately. Yesterday flight CA941 (and that's a Boeing 767 you see in the picture), headed to Dubai from Beijing, was ready for takeoff with 148 passengers on board at about 5:15pm, when its "fore-undercarriage suddenly took back, leaving the plane nose on the ground". Ouch! Just two days before this though, yet another Air China flight (a Boeing 747 this time) had to make an emergency landing at the Los Angeles International Airport. The plane had just taken off when the captain reported a tire blowout. Thankfully there were no reports of injuries, although tire debris was found on the runway. more ›

Yesterday when Shanghaiist arrived at work, the boss said, "pick up a copy of yesterday's China Daily. They've got a story about the gun holdup on [colleague's name]'s flight to Beijing." more ›

Photo by spiky247 taken from the Shanghaiist photos page. To see your photos on our photos page, use Flickr and tag your photos "shanghaiist". Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site. more ›

They pretty much roll like your average rap star. The Hurun Report surveyed 600 of Mainland China's wealthiest, those with at least RMB 10 million in the bank or under their mattresses. The results aren't really too surprising, but Shanghai's rich search the Internet with Google, while the rest of the country prefers Baidu. And Shanghai's wealthy like to travel to Europe, while Beijing's like to jet to the United States. We have reproduced the Shanghai survey findings below. For the other lists, follow these links: Nationwide, Beijing, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanxi, Northeast, Shandong, Sichuan/Chongqing. There is also a China Daily story about the list. more ›