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CAAC starts investigation on 'return flights'

(China Daily-Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-04-07 09:34

Yuan Yiting and Li Qin, from Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, went to the customer service counter at Kunming airport on Friday morning, demanding that China Eastern compensate them for losses.

They said they were among 10 passengers who came to Kunming airport on Monday to board flight MU5760 to Lijiang, but the plane did not arrive until 8 am the next morning.

When they finally took off, the plane turned around in mid-flight and flew back to Kunming. "I could even see the aircraft runway at Lijiang airport and it was really sunny that day," Yuan said.

Media reports over the past week have pointed to similar incidents.

On March 14, 40 Shanghai Airlines pilots called in sick, while at the new Wuhan East Star Airline, 11 pilots asked for sick leave on March 28.

The reports said that pilots were angered by being required to sign 99-year contracts with State-owned airlines that call for them to pay their employers up to 2.1 million yuan in compensation if they quit.

Airlines in China, which are mostly State-owned, directly pay the high costs of pilot training.

China has 12,000 civil pilots. But official figures predict that the total number of flights would increase 80 percent by 2010 and 6,500 more pilots would be required.

It generally costs a Chinese airline about 700,000 yuan to 1.8 million yuan ($100,000 to $257,000) to train a pilot.

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