As the Chinese government dropped almost all COVID restrictions for domestic travelers, the number of flights and bookings surged.
The domestic civil aviation market recovered rapidly and significantly after the Chinese government issued new COVID prevention policies (the new ten articles) on December 7th.
China Eastern Airlines operated 42 international flights and 1,379 domestic flights on December 12th, an increase of more than 150% compared to 543 domestic flights on December 1st. If we count the number of passengers transported, China Eastern Airlines carried nearly 140,000 passengers on December 12th, an increase of nearly 140% compared with the beginning of the month.
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According to China Eastern, it has received several official letters from various domestic city governments to coordinate the resumption of regular passenger flights.
Overall, the total number of domestic passenger flights reached 7,000 on December 11th, compared to 3,000 on December 1st. The number before the pandemic was 13,500 on December 11th, 2019. This means the current number of domestic flights has recovered to 61.28% compared with the same period before the outbreak.
China’s latest COVID prevention policies
Last week, the Chinese government surprisingly dropped almost all COVID prevention restrictions that were strictly implemented for the last three years. These restrictions are the reason for significant reductions in flight numbers and massive lockdowns frequently seen.
Now domestic travelers do not need a negative PCR test result to enter almost all Chinese domestic civil airports, including the major ones like Air China-based Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) and Beijing Daxing International Airport (PKX), China Eastern-based Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport (SHA). Other airports set for a strong recovery include Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) and China Southern-based Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (CAN).
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International travelers still face 5+3 days of quarantine when visiting mainland China. However, the government of Hong Kong SAR also issued new rules that cancel the “yellow code,” which means any international travelers with a negative PCR test result will face no quarantine time and no more restrictions after arrival.
Observers said it is likely that China’s mainland will further reduce or even cancel its quarantine restrictions for international travelers after the new year holiday.
The downside to this is that positive cases have surged with restrictions now gone. The Chinese government encourages people who have mild symptoms to stay at home, so the exact number of positive cases is no longer clear. But expert estimates tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, will be infected in the following months.
Travel demands rockets
Besides airports, now that the restrictions are gone for almost all public places in China, travel demands has rocketed, as demonstrated by rising numbers of searches for flight tickets. According to Spring Airlines, the search numbers for its flight tickets increased by 30% after the “new ten articles” was announced, an increase of 100% compared to last month. The searches focus on the New Year holiday and the Chinese Spring Festival in January.
Photo: Spring Airlines
Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager of Spring Airlines’ travel agency, is pleased that the optimization of the prevention measures has indeed boosted the tourism market. She said, “our New Year holiday travel bookings on December 8th increased by ten times compared to the same period last year after “the new ten articles” were introduced on December 7th.”
On December 8th, the number of ticket bookings for China Eastern also increased by 23.4% compared with the previous day and by 100.7% compared with the beginning of the month.