LONDON – China’s COVID-19 resurgence is causing a continuation of woes for Chengdu Airport, with numbers consistently at quite a low point.
The airport has managed to recover from a low point in September, which we will get into in this piece, but there are no signs of any positive spiking as of yet.
Without further ado, let’s get into the data provided by RadarBox.com!:
A Dangerous September…
For two weeks in September, the airport had suffered badly, as seen above from the seven-day rolling averages provided by the flight tracking company.
For September 3-10, the airport handled 105 movements, which was 87.24% lower than the same period last year, where 816 movements were handled.
This represented a loss of 828 movements compared to pre-pandemic levels and a staggering loss of 896 movements compared to 2020’s numbers, where the airport was actually performing stronger.
For September 10-17, the airport handled 123 movements, which was 84.93% lower than the same period last year, and 822 movements lower than 2019’s numbers.
Below is the airport’s September data so then you can see more clearly the heavy drop in movements:
| Date | 2019 Numbers | 2021 Numbers | 2022 Numbers | Percentage Difference (2022 vs. 2021) |
| August 27-September 3 | 952 movements | 781 movements | 242 movements | -69.01% |
| September 3-10 | 933 movements | 823 movements | 105 movements | -87.24% |
| September 10-17 | 945 movements | 816 movements | 123 movements | -84.93% |
| September 17-24 | 933 movements | 817 movements | 267 movements | -67.32% |
| September 24-October 1 | 934 movements | 849 movements | 381 movements | -55.12% |
What you can see from September’s data is that the percentage changes into the red are quite substantial and that such numbers have been very sporadic, indicating no positive change.
Where The Airport Is Now…
For this week, the airport handled 371 movements based on the seven-day rolling average, which is 16.63% less than the same period last year.
The airport needs another 549 movements to chase in terms of pre-pandemic levels, but with the current environment in China with COVID, this probably won’t increase for some time yet.
Below is the last four weeks’ worth of data from the airport:
| Date | 2019 Numbers | 2021 Numbers | 2022 Numbers | Percentage Difference (2022 vs. 2021) |
| October 21-29 | 937 movements | 786 movements | 389 movements | -50.51% |
| October 29-November 5 | 928 movements | 496 movements | 372 movements | -25.00% |
| November 5-12 | 920 movements | 279 movements | 387 movements | +38.71% |
| November 12-19 | 910 movements | 299 movements | 397 movements | +32.78% |
What we can see from this data is a sporadic mix of negative and positive performance, which in hindsight, is an improvement from the period of September.
That being said, the airport still has a lot of work to do and needs to continue applying pressure on China over such COVID-19 practices, as such losses can only be sustained for so long.
Until the country can get COVID under control properly and for the last time, this is going to put airports such as Chengdu under a lot of pressure to perform as well as possible.
But there is only so much that they can do as an airport, which is why all eyes will be on the Chinese Government to see how they can deal with COVID going into the Winter and into the start of 2023.
