Grand China Air Co., Ltd. (GCA) is a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

airline based at

Haikou Meilan International Airport Haikou Meilan International Airport is the airport serving Haikou, the capital of Hainan Province, China. It is located southeast of the city center and was opened in 1999, replacing the old Dayingshan Airport located along what is now the cit ...

History

Grand China Air was formed on 29 November 2007 under the initiative of the HNA group's largest operational entity,

Hainan Airlines Hainan Airlines Co., Ltd. (HNA, ) is an airline headquartered in Haikou, Hainan, People's Republic of China. The airline is rated as a 5-star airline by Skytrax. It is the largest civilian-run and majority state-owned air transport company, ...

, to merge its operations with HNA Group's subsidiaries

Shanxi Airlines Shanxi Airlines was an airline based in Taiyuan in the People's Republic of China. It operated scheduled domestic passenger services. In Nov 29, 2007, it merged with China Xinhua Airlines and Chang An Airlines to form Grand China Air, a subsid ...

, Chang An Airlines, and

China Xinhua Airlines China Xinhua Airlines () was an airline based in Chaoyang District, Beijing, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China. It operated scheduled trunk services and charter flights. Its main bases were Beijing Capital International Airport and Tianjin Binhai ...

. The airline is headquartered in Beijing and registered in Hainan Province. As of 14 April 2012 only one of its 737-800s have been fitted with winglets. Grand China Air was owned by 23 shareholders. The top 5 shareholders were Hainan Development Holdings (24.97%), HNA Group (23.11%), Starstep (9.57%),

(8.30%) and

Shenhua Group Shenhua Group Corporation Limited was a Chinese state-owned mining and energy company. Shenhua Group was founded in October 1995 under the auspices of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. It was the largest coal-producing compan ...

(5.56%). It was reported that

George Soros George Soros ( name written in eastern order), (born György Schwartz, August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist. , he had a net worth of US$8.6 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated mo ...

was a minority shareholder It was reported that Starstep was still owned by Soros. Former associate of Soros, Bharat Bhisé, via Pan-American Aviation Holdings, owned 4.00% stake of Grand China Air as the 8th largest shareholder (in 2015 Pan-American was acquired by Jun Guan); Pan-American Aviation Holdings was a minority shareholder of HNA Group indirectly.

U.S. sanctions

In January 2021, the United States government named Grand China Air as a company "owned or controlled" by the

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...

and thereby prohibited any American company or individual from investing in it.

Destinations

Grand China Air will serve the same destinations as

Fleet

Current fleet

, Grand China Air operates an all-Boeing fleet consisting of the following aircraft:

Former fleet

The airline previously operated the following aircraft (as of August 2018): * 1 further Boeing 737-800

References

External links

Official website
{{Airlines of the People's Republic of China Airlines of China Airlines established in 2007 Companies based in Hainan HNA Group Chinese companies established in 2007 Chinese brands