Xiamen Air ( ) also known as Xiamen Airlines, is an airline based in Xiamen, China. Xiamen Air has its northern headquarters in Beijing and eight branches in Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Hunan, Beijing, Quanzhou, Chongqing and Shanghai, and two subsidiaries in Hebei Airlines (99.47% shareholding) and Jiangxi Airlines (60% shareholding, based on the former Xiamen Airlines Nanchang Branch). Founded on July 25, 1984, Xiamen Airlines is the first airline in China to operate independently as an enterprise. It was established as a joint venture between the Shanghai Administration of Civil Aviation Administration of China, Xiamen Special Economic Zone Construction Development Company (now Xiamen C&D Group) and Fujian Investment Enterprise Company. The shareholders are China Southern Airlines Corporation (55%), Xiamen C&D Group (34%) and Fujian Investment and Development Group (11%). The current chairman of Xiamen Airlines is Zhao Dong and the general manager is Wang Zhixue.
Xiamen Airlines operates more than 320 domestic and international routes from Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport, Beijing Daxing International Airport, Fuzhou Changle International Airport and Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, with 3,500 to 4,000 flights per week and carries nearly 25 million passengers per year. Xiamen Airlines' logo is "A Heron Flying High", a well-known trademark in China, and its frequent flyer program is the Xiamen Airlines White Egret Frequent Flyer Program. The airline features in-flight announcements in Mandarin and English, but also in Minnan, which are broadcast by Xia Hui, a former broadcaster for the Central People's Radio station and Xiamen Broadcasting Company.
Xiamen Airlines is the 19th member of the international airline alliance SkyTeam and the first airline in mainland China to join the world's three major airline alliances other than other three major state-owned airlines (including China Southern, which withdrew from SkyTeam on January 1, 2019) and Shanghai Airlines, which joined the alliance as an affiliate member, and the fourth full member of SkyTeam in Greater China (the first three being China Southern, China Eastern, and China Airlines, of which China Southern withdrew from the alliance on January 1, 2019).
History
Xiamen Civil Aviation
The history of Xiamen's aviation industry can be traced back to the Xiamen Wutong Civil Aviation Academy in 1928, which was one of the only three aviation academy in the Republic of China at that time.
In 1929, the Zhangxia Navy established the Zengcuo Aun Naval Airport in Xiamen, and in 1932, the China Airlines Xiamen Office, a joint venture between China and the United States, operated air transportation to various places. Later, the airport was abandoned due to the Japanese invasion of China.
In 1941, during the Second World War, the Japanese who occupied Xiamen built Gaoqi Airport in the east of Gaoqi Village for both military and civilian use. From December 5 of the same year, first commercial flight between Xiamen and Taipei took off and landed at Gaoqi Airport.
After Japan's defeat and surrender, Gaoqi Airport was taken over by the Nationalist government and converted to a civilian airport on November 1, 1947. On August 24, 1949, the last scheduled Xiamen to Taipei flight took off from Gaoqi Airport to Taipei and then was discontinued (the route was not converted to a regular service until 2006 when holiday charters resumed and after December 2008). For the next 33 years, Xiamen's aviation industry was disrupted and Gaoqi Airport was abandoned after a brief period of military use.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Xiamen was in a state of war for a long time and had no civil aviation airport of its own because of its location on the front of the Taiwan Strait. At that time, the citizens of Xiamem could only travel by boat or train. This contradiction was even more prominent after the establishment of Xiamen Special Economic Zone. On January 10, 1982, the Central Military Commission and the State Council approved the construction of Xiamen Gaoqi Airport. In October of the following year.