I've read the new airport will open soon. I'm due to go home in July. Should I wait until the airport opens before I buy my ticket home, in the hope that there are direct connections with Europe? Or is it safer to bet on a flight over Beijing to Belgium first?
Or: when airports open, do they typically already have agreements with major flight organisations ready so I can fly the very day it opens?
In my experience, when a new airport opens, they have a few major new routes lined up. However, they usually advertise them WELL before they open as a "coming up in 3 months" in order to secure bookings and hence make money from day 1. Think about it, if they said "today we are flying to Belgium!" on the opening day without prior announcements, how many people would they get on the first few flights? Not many!
Be safe, go from Beijing.
After new airports open they also add routes but this is all up to the airline companies. They decide whether it would be profitable based on the airport rent, the visa situations between the companies, plane positioning logistics, landing fees etc etc.
So basically, if you don't see anyone advertising now for flights in July, I suspect there aren't any. July is a bit close anyway - airlines probably wouldn't commit planes at that stage as it is too close to the airport opening which could be delayed beyond that date if all associated services aren't there (i.e. the road finished, the toilets installed etc).
Every new facility has teething problems when they first open. Bejing's new airport was a complete (to use the edited words of Gunny Highway) 'clusterflop' for 3 months after it first opened. Especially considering the world attention due to the Olympics.
Don't expect the Kunming Airport management to be more effective than Beijing's.
Yuantongsi
(717 posts) •
If you haven't bought your ticket yet then why don't you try the Finnair flight from ChongQing to Helsinki then home. CQ is only an hour flight from KM and Helsinki is well connected to Europe,,and only 8 something hours flight from CQ.
Kunming will be lucky to just get it's Hanoi flight back, much less new direct flights to Europe when the new airport opens. For KMG to add routes to Europe, better connections to SE Asia are required.
Bangkok has plenty of flights to Europe and only a 2 hour flight away.
