Starting from April 15, China's big three state-owned airlines - China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Air China - will each in succession release their annual report for 2008. According to their previous preliminary reports, the airlines were anticipating earnings losses. Air China and China Eastern Airlines are now expected to be reporting even bigger losses because of their fuel hedging contracts.

However, things may have started to look up for the three. Based on information provided by the three airlines and industry analysts the domestic airline industry has seen signs of recovery, and it's highly likely that the big three airlines might book profits in the first quarter report of 2009.

A news report carried by People's Daily on April 10 said that Chinese airlines made an estimated 800-million-yuan profit in the first quarter. Also, statistics from the Civil Administration of China (CACC) show that the total air traffic carried by the industry from January to March rose by 1.3 percent year-on-year. Year-on-year domestic passenger traffic in these three months increased by 21.3 percent, 17 percent and 15.8 percent respectively.

For more details, please read the full Chinese coverage at:

http://www.china-cbn.com/s/n/000004/20090414/000000112275.shtml

(China.org.cn by Yan Pei, April 14, 2009)