An official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) denied earlier media reports claiming that the five biggest Chinese airlines had colluded to hike airfares, the Jinghua Times reported Thursday.

The CAAC official said that given the current fierce competition among domestic airline companies, it would not be possible for the five airlines – Air China, China Eastern Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines – to reach any agreement on a price hike.

On April 20, media reports suggested that domestic airlines had used the adoption of a new ticket pricing mechanism as a smokescreen for their airfare hike, arousing public anger and questions.

However, according to the official, the new pricing mechanism is just an upgrade of the previous sales system and there will still be plenty of cheap tickets with big discounts in the future.

Air China spokeswoman and general manager of the marketing department Zhang Chunzhi clarified the situation on the same day. Zhang said that she had checked with relevant officials and confirmed that Air China had not colluded with other airlines to hike airfares. She added that it is natural for air ticket discounts to drop at the moment as the industry is about to enter its peak season in May.

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

http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2009-04/23/content_11238615.htm

(China.org.cn by Yan Pei, April 24, 2009)