Jane Chen / Shanghai Daily news

The Shanghai-based and privately-held Spring Airlines Company Limited has stunned the market again by offering flights at half the price of comparable railway services.
Passengers booking a flight from Shanghai to Zhejiang Province's Wenzhou on the carrier's website will be able to purchase tickets at as low as 99 yuan (US$12.5), half the price of a sleeper ticket of around 200 yuan, today's Oriental Morning Post reported.
Passengers with less luck can still obtain tickets at 199 yuan, compared with the normal price of 700-yuan.
The inaugural flight of the Shanghai-Wenzhou service is scheduled for next Monday. 
The discounted tickets, 99 yuan and 199 yuan, will together account for 25 percent of the total tickets on offer and be available on a long-term basis rather than merely on a short-term promotional basis, a Spring Airlines spokesperson told the Shanghai-based newspaper yesterday.
Describing the discounts as highly competitive, he said the company hopes to attract more business, as the lowest price offered by other airlines on the route is 320 yuan.
In a separate measure, the spokesperson said that, starting next month, the company will begin levying fuel surcharges in accordance with the rules set by aviation market authorities.
The surcharges will not be very high because Spring Airlines is registered as a budget carrier, the spokesperson added, without specifying the numbers involved.