Yangtze River Express (Shanghai Hongqiao) has lodged an application with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to expand into the scheduled passenger services market. China's WCARN newswire says the airline would focus on developing Shanghai Hongqiao into a passenger hub to compliment its existing cargo operations there. It will, however, face stiff competition from the likes of China Eastern Airlines (MU, Shanghai Hongqiao), Spring Airlines (9C, Shanghai Hongqiao) and Lucky Air (China) (8L, Dali) all of which control a significant stake of the passenger market there.

It is also believed the airline will open its shareholding up to either fellow Hainan Airlines (HU, Haikou) Group member carriers or outsiders in a bid to raise the capital needed.

Yangtze River Express operates an all-Boeing (BOE, Washington National) fleet of B737-300(F)s, B737-400(F)s and B747-400(F)s on flights throughout China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Russia, Western Europe and the United States.