Baidu backed Qunar wants to do what?

There have been lots of exciting developments happening in the airline industry, be it cramped seating in economy class or the so-called best business seats. This news though beats everything out by a mile. According to this news article, Chinese on-line travel booking giant Qunar intends to start its own airline.

The Baidu backed company intends to set-up this new airline along with two yet unnamed co-founders which will give it bragging rights to being one of the first Chinese on-line travel agency to be able to do so. This act can also be termed as a reaction to the acrimonious battle that the company had to fight against Chinese airlines about the extra charges and opaque refund policy for the tickets bought on the so-called flagship stores set-up on its website.

This is a strange situation given that running an airline is by no means an easy business given that the world has seen many illustrious businessmen burn they trying to run these businesses. Much more unlikely is someone like Qunar trying to jump into this. Whatever maybe the reason it will be interesting to see if this ever takes shape and if it does how will it shape up to be and target which audience segment. Do remember that China is one of the fastest growing aviation spaces and is now witnessing the most explosive growth both in terms of aviation infrastructure and airlines itself. With both Boeing and Airbus setting up shop in China and the government-owned co. building a plane of its own we may be hearing more exciting news from this market.