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Air China was founded in 1988. According to the Civil Aviation System Reform Program approved by the State Department in October 2002, Air China combined China National Aviation Company and China Southwest Airlines to form China Aviation Group Company. On September 30, 2004, Air China Limited was founded in Beijing by combining the resources of these three companies and was approved by the national assets supervision committee of the State Department as the main air transport company controlled by China Aviation Group. Air China Limited began with 23,000 employees, registered assets of 6.5 billion RMB and paid-up capital of 9.433 billion RMB. On December 15, 2004, Air China successfully listed stock on the Hong Kong exchange (trading code 0753) and the London exchange (trading code AIRC).

The enterprise logo of Air China is the Phoenix. The Chinese version of the words “Air China” on the logo was written by Mr. Deng Xiaoping. The Phoenix is a divine bird in the Chinese legend and has been adored by the Chinese people since ancient times. According to the record in Shan Hai Jing, the Phoenix is born in an oriental country called Junzi and flies across the great Kunlun Mountain and over all of the oceans. Wherever she flies, she brings luck and peace. The color of the logo is the traditional Chinese red which implies luckiness, roundness, auspiciousness, happiness. It expresses Air China’s sincere passion of serving the society and the endless pursuit of the safety. Air China strives to be an airline with an international reputation by being recognized by international passengers, being a valuable airline in China, having strong profit earnings and being competitive in the world. The enterprise culture of Air China emphasizes meeting the needs of customers, looking to the future with innovation, and providing a high level of service.

Air China is the only airline company which carries the national flag. It is ranked first in brand value among domestic airline companies (the world brand laboratory evaluated it in 2006 as 18.896 billion RMB), and it is among the leading companies in air passenger transport and freight transport. Air China is responsible for flying Chinese national leaders to their destinations and bringing foreign leaders and governmental leaders to China. The headquarter of Air China is located in Beijing with several branch companies such as Southwest, Zhejiang, Chongqing, Inner Mongolia, Tianjin, Guizhou, and Tibet. Air China also has a Shanghai and Huanan base. Air China owns a project technology branch company, a business plane branch company, Ameco, China International Freight Transport Airline Co. Ltd. and Beijing Air Food Company. Air China has equity in Shenzhen Airline and Cathay Pacific Airline and is the biggest stockholder of Shangdong Aviation Group Co. Ltd. Air China controlled Macao Airline Co. Ltd. until December 2005. Air China owns 176 Boeing and Airbus planes and flies to 22 countries and districts, among which there are 36 international cities and 70 domestic cities. There are 4,160 periodical flights per week.

Air China has a strong domestic and international route and sales network, with the main hub in Beijing. In recent years, Air China has strengthened several of its regional hubs in Chengdu, Shanghai and Guangzhou. In order to strengthen the international route network, Air China has attached great importance on cooperating with foreign airlines and has signed a code sharing agreement with 11 domestic and foreign airlines. (Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Scandinavian Airlines, Finnair, Turkish Airlines, United Airlines, ANA, Dragonair, Macao Airlines, Shandong Airlines and Shanghai Airlines). There are currently 1,210 code sharing flights per week. In May 2005, Air China joined the biggest aviation union, Star-Field Union Understanding Memorandum. The numerous domestic, international and code share flights offered by Air China gives domestic and foreign customers’ convenient flight services. As of December 2005, Air China had 102 sales departments in China and abroad, and 10,000 dependent sales deputies among which 3,000 were domestic. It also developed 2,105 direct sales clients and 115 sales counters which created a strong and powerful sales network. In order to strengthen the market sales and make the sales channels more flexible, Air China offers electronic tickets and online sales services in many domestic cities.

Air China provides quality service to an extensive passenger group. Over 71% of the guests who take Air China flights are business and commercial passengers. Air China is the first airline choice for many people from Chinese governmental organizations and companies. The Frequent Passengers Club of Air China has over 3 million active and faithful members. In August 2004, Air China became the sole airline partner of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Air China has made a huge investment in the innovation of hardware and software equipment. The first class and business class seats of 15 wide body long distance planes like B747－400, B747－400COMB1 and A340－300 have been upgraded so they can fully recline. The entertainment services have been upgraded as well.

Air China has a team of pilots and flight attendants with excellent business and service skills. Among the 2600 Air China pilots, there are 131 meritorious pilots who have piloted more than 20,000 hours safely, and 542 golden prize pilots who have piloted more than 16,000 hours safely. Air China’s piloting team has received many prizes such as the “International Civil Aviation Organization Honorary Medal”, “National Safe Production Advanced Collectivity”, and the “Safe Piloting Example Unit”. Air China is famous for its safe flying record. Among the 3200 flight attendants, there are diverse backgrounds including flight attendants with Japanese, Korean and German nationalities. They provide excellent service to our passengers.

To maintain Air China’s airplanes, project technology branches have been set-up which consist of 6 bases, 3 joint ventures, 3 centers, 113 aviation stations and more than 8000 engineers and technicians. The maintenance personnel team, with excellent techniques and working styles, ensures the airplanes are safe by performing flight maintenance everyday. They also offer high quality maintenance services to more than 80 airline companies throughout the world. Since the end of 1980s, the team has been responsible for more than 20 national maintenance projects and awarded more than 50 scientific and technological advanced prizes issued by national and provincial ministries and commissions. Ameco, which is jointly managed by Air China and Germany’s Lufthansa, is the civil airplane comprehensive maintenance enterprise with the largest scale in China. It is also the first airplane maintenance company approved by the CAAC, FAA and the EASA and has received the maintenance licenses issued by 12 countries. It can offer flight course maintenance, heavy repair and various kinds of engine repair services for Boeing and Airbus planes for domestic and foreign airlines.

The operation controlling center is the backbone of the Air China’s flight operations and it commands Air China flights all over the world. It uses computer piloting plan systems and collects information from plan capability databases, the world navigation database, the world’s airport databases and high altitude weather databases. It also chooses good flight courses, makes piloting plans, and confirms piloting qualifications. Air China has developed its own operation management system, integrated satellite telephone system, space data communication system and shortwave wireless system which made it the first airline company in the country with super long-distance supervision capacity. After the use of shortwave communication systems in 2004, the supervision network (which uses Beijing and Lhasa as the core) covered the Asian continent, the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean stretching to the arctic pole area.

Air China offers high quality ground service for 23 foreign airlines and 4 domestic airlines which occupies 65% of ground service at the Beijing Capital Airport. Ground service includes passengers’ arrival and departure services, special passenger services, VIP passenger services, passenger luggage services, flight departure system services, station loading and unloading services, and cabin cleaning services. Ground services offers 3 types of services and 13 service items with over 2900 employees handling the responsibilities. The ground services assets including more than 500 ground equipment and special vehicles are worth 0.2 billion RMB. Air China’s ground service organization is the largest in China civil aviation.

Air China pilots go through strict training. The piloting training center organized by Air China’s training department is the first teaching and training center that uses whole mission piloting simulation planes and computer basic training machines to conduct the pilots training. For Boeing planes, it has the comprehensive training capacity to carry out different plane mode training for pilots. It does periodic re-training and pilot examinations. The piloting training team, which has its base at Tianjin Binhai International Airport, has two Boeing 737-300 planes which are specially used for pilots training. The flight attendant training center is the first multi-function training base in China for training flight attendants. The instructors at the center have the title of top grade flight attendant and have CRM teaching qualifications. The center has trained more than 80,000 students for nearly 40 domestic and foreign airline companies and it has offered training service for many other industries such as post offices, restaurants, railways, highway transport, banks, hospitals, and insurance and telecommunication companies.

Air China focuses on building a stable base for safety by providing training and supervision for the staff and learning from experiences. For 51 years, the Air China planes have covered more than 100 countries and districts, piloted more than 5 million hours safely, carried more than 0.4 billion passengers, and offered more than 5000 special plane tasks for national leaders. Air China’s excellent technology has received a widespread reputation. Air China created the world’s first class safe piloting record and has 40 years of safe piloting between Chengdu and Lhasa which is a well-known route for its difficulty.

Air China’s management has been expanded and its brand value has been enlarged. The profit earnings level ranked first in the China civil aviation field for three years since 2003. In 2004 and 2005, Air China got the “Clients Satisfaction High Quality Prize” for the airline company that carries more than 15 million passengers. In June 2006, Air China was ranked number 32 by the world brand laboratory of China’s 500 most valuable brands. Air China’s brand value is 18.896 billion RMB which is ranked first in the domestic aviation service field and it is the only transport service enterprise among the domestic 29 brands which has an international presence. Among the 100 great Chinese companies appraised by the famous American grade evaluating organization Standard & Poor, Air China ranks 16th and is the first civil aviation company in the ranking. The Air China brand has been jointly appraised as one of China’s ten international brands by The Financial Times of Great Britain and American McKinsey Management Consulting Company. In September 2005, Air China got the prize for the Chinese ten national brands mostly favored by the public. High recognition of the Air China brand reflects the dedication of Air China’s management and staff.

Air China’s goal is to be the most valuable airline in China to passengers, have the strongest profit earnings, and have competitive power in the world. Air China strives to be among the world’s top 15 companies by management scale and stand among successful European and Asian airline companies.