|
Obsolete maps and runway morass
The pioneers in the Chinese venture had to start from scratch. When Siegfried Graf Schack von Wittenau, the first Lufthanseat pilot, reached Peking, he had had to make do with maps on a scale of only 1 : 1.000.000 and they were already 20 years old. Radio beacons, workshops, land marks, parts stores and, above all, airports as we know them were non-existent. They first had to be constructed and secured.
|
|
The efforts to set up the necessary infrastructure encountered numerous problems. The take-off and landing strips left much to be desired. The sub-grade was poorly paved and rainfall turned the strips into a dangerous morass. Additionally, the first flights often went astray. Emergency landings occasioned by fuel shortage after navigation errors were a not infrequent occurrence. The early pilots often had to wait several weeks for help or spare parts.
|
|
|
Abrupt end after eight million flight kilometres
Against all the odds, the Eurasia airline steadly expanded its route network. By 1939, its flight connections stretched over a total distance of 7,660 kilometres, the greatest the network was to reach. The routing, though, changed from one year to the next. The network had to be repeatedly adapted to the changing circumstances brought about by hostilities.
When Nazi Germany recognised the Japanese satellite regime Nanking in World War Two in 1941, the Chinese ended the cooperation. In the ten years of the Sino-German accord, the Junkers aircraft had carried 52,000 passengers and 2,100 tonnes of freight. In that time, they had logged eight million flight kilometres. It took nigh on forty years before a Lufthansa plane set off again on a flight to China: A DC 10 took off again on the route pioneered by the early pilots to Peking on 7 April 1980.
Today’s aviation relations between Lufthansa and China are close and diverse. Lufthansa has been codesharing with Air China for the past six years. Many of the flights between Germany and China are offered under a common code. Passengers bound for the Middle Kingdom can choose between more than 50 flights weekly with Lufthansa flight numbers. The Star Alliance welcomed Shanghai Airlines and Air China as candidates for admission to the airline grouping in May 2006.
|
|
|
|
