IAG chief executive Willie Walsh described UK visa restrictions for Chinese visitors as “madness” at the CAPA Aviation Summit in Amsterdam.
“If you’re in China and you want to travel to Europe you have to get a Schengen visa, which means there are 26 countries you can travel to,” he said. “And it’s three quarters the price of a UK visa.”
Walsh was speaking during a panel session discussing the Chinese market, alongside bosses from Emirates, Air Astana and Ethiopian Airlines.
He added: “I find it strange that the UK government is highlighting China as a priority in terms of trade and development and yet they make it so difficult for Chinese people to do business with the UK.”
Walsh hoped that Cameron’s planned trade delegation visit to China next week was a sign of improvements to come.
Emirates president Tim Clark said China was not currently a major player in his carrier’s network, although the airline operates A380s to Beijing and Shanghai.
“It’s very important to us that the opening of China is facilitated for all, because it’s such a robust market, and it will be the future,” he said.
“So suddenly we’ll have 600 or 700 million people who want to travel abroad – and more fool those governments that don’t welcome the spending power they will bring. They are no threat to anybody, they are wealth multipliers.”
Clark welcomed the massive investment in infrastructure in China, with 80 new airports due for completion by 2015, and another 100 being revamped.
But the Emirates boss called on the Chinese government to “open its doors” and allow more access to foreign carriers because it would help Chinese carriers with reciprocal access.
Air Astana president Peter Foster that while south and south-western China has traditionally driven growth, there is a “fantastic opportunity” in north-west, with 150 million people in an up-and-coming region close the border of Air Astana’s home base, Kazakhstan.
“The Chinese government has made efforts to spread the wealth throughout the country, and the region is benefitting. We have been able to put a footprint down, and it’s proving to be very successful,” he said, referring to the airline’s five-times-weekly service to Urumqi in north-west China.
“We are fortunate because of our proximity. We are also seeing traffic coming through Almaty to Europe. We are seeing this explosion of travel from that region.”
Tewolde GebreMariam Tesfay, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, expected Chinese carriers to want to add more flights to Africa over the next few years.
“They may not be able to fly to every small market in Africa, so they need a hub. And we are trying to create a hub for them.”
He said Ethiopian was working to establish four gateway hubs – Addis Ababa in the east, Lome in Togo in the west, Malawi in the south another in central Africa – for partner carriers such as Air China and Shenzen.
Walsh said IAG was talking to Chinese carriers including Spring Airlines and Sichuan Airlines about possible bilateral relationships outside the Oneworld alliance. However, he said the biggest issue was the lack of slots at Heathrow.