What’s the happiest city in Anhui? It’s one of The Nanjinger’s favourite jokes, but worth trotting out again. Wuhu!!!! And those Wuhunians (yes, we made that up) now have another reason to be happy; the cheapest air tickets in the world, arguably!
Alert netizens have had their thumbs busy of late. Looking for cheap tickets. And they found some in Spring Airlines’ (春秋航空) recent promotion. Specifically, that would be ¥9 for a ticket between Wuhu, in southeastern-neighbouring Anhui, and Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province in northeastern China.
As the crow flies, that’s 1,245 kilometres. For ¥9. The price of a small and very-average carton of milk. Or ¥0.007 per kilometre. There’s no way that’s offsetting the fuel cost, to say nothing of carbon emissions.
But it doesn’t just stop at Shenyang, reports The World Journal. Spring Airlines is also offering ¥9 tickets out of Wuhu to Fuzhou, Shijiazhuang and elsewhere, while a ticket from Wuhu to tourist hotspot, Xiamen, costs an extortinate ¥59.
Not even easyJet or Ryanair can compete with that.
To make some comparisons, a train ticket between Wuhu and Shenyang will set you back more than ¥700 and take 9 and a half hours.
Similarly, there is no direct train between Wuhu and Fuzhou; the journey requires a transfer in either Hangzhou and Hefei. So the flights make a lot of sense, but why the crazy rock-bottom prices?
The effort is part effort to stimulate demand and part intended to drum up traffic for the recently opened Wuhu Xuanzhou Airport, built to replace the Wuhu Wanli Airport that is now an air force base, and as the name suggests, purposed to serve the cities of both Wuhu and Xuancheng in Anhui Province.
Certainly, the facility could use the promotion. According to FlightRadar24, over the next week, Wuhu Xuanzhou Airport will operate just 129 flights to 24 cities nationwide; its busiest route being services to and from Shenzhen in Guangdong Province.
With Wuhu Xuanzhou Airport being little more than 1 and half hour’s drive from Nanjing, it’s almost enough for us to consider flying for little more than a Dollar!
