Air travel emerges from turbulence of pandemic

Summer peak season reaffirms surge in industry's recovery

By ZHU WENQIAN | China Daily Global | Updated: 2024-08-12 07:27
Share
Share - WeChat
Passengers boarding the Air China flight from Jeju to Beijing take photos in the check-in area at Jeju International Airport in South Korea on March 31, when the resumption ceremony of the Air China Beijing-Jeju route was held. SUN YIRAN/XINHUA

Among those, 8.54 million foreigners visited the country through visa-free entry, accounting for 52 percent of total entries. The administration projected that foreign travelers' enthusiasm for visiting China will keep growing in the second half of the year.

The air travel market in China has entered its summer peak season, and domestic airports are expected to handle 1.08 million takeoffs and landings, with the average number of daily flights 17,361, an increase of 13.87 percent compared with the 2019 pre-pandemic level, according to statistics compiled by Civil Aviation Data Analysis.

Chinese travelers have also shown greater interest in traveling abroad. In the first half of this year, China-Singapore round-trip flights accounted for 3.7 million passengers at Singapore's Changi Airport, or about 11 percent of the total passenger volume. The numbers exceeded, or approached, the pre-pandemic level seen in 2019 for five consecutive months, the airport said.

The numbers of passengers from Shanghai, Xiamen, Fujian province, and Kunming, Yunnan province, have been growing the fastest. The 30-day visa-free entry between China and Singapore, as well as the increase in flight capacities, has driven the passenger volumes between the two countries, the airport said.

The International Air Transport Association recently released global data for June. Total demand, measured in revenue passenger kilometers, was up 9.1 percent compared with June 2023. Total capacity, measured in available seat kilometers, was up 8.5 percent year-on-year, and the passenger load factor was 85 percent in June.

"Demand grew across all regions as the peak northern summer travel season began in June. And with overall capacity growth lagging demand, we saw a very strong average load factor of 85 percent achieved in both domestic and international operations," said Willie Walsh, IATA's director general.

"Operating with such high load factors is both good and challenging. It makes it even more important for all the stakeholders to operate with equal levels of efficiency to minimize delays and get travelers to their destinations on schedule," Walsh said.

|<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next   >>|
Top
BACK TO THE TOP
English
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US