LONDON – This week, it has been revealed by Global Times that the CAAC aims that this year’s market performance is set to return to 75% of what was seen back in 2019.
75% Performance Levels Return…
As the aviation sector within China begins to recover as the country begins to settle into a new norm with the Covid-19 pandemic slowly relaxing, the CAAC, also known as the Civil Aviation Administration of China, has said that they aim to achieve 75% of the overall market performance this year of what was seen pre-pandemic back in 2019.
From today (January 8), as part of the recovery of the aviation sector within China, packages have been announced whereby travel bans will be lifted, removing any form of quarantining restrictions on international arrivals.
Not only this, but the restrictions that also impacted outbound travelers will also be removed so that outbound travel can resume back to some form of normality for Chinese citizens and any leaving outbound travelers.
The CAAC said in a note to the Global Times that they have the following aims for the market return –
- Transportation Turnover to equal 97.6 billion ton-kilometers.
- Passenger Transportation Volume to equal 460 million person-times.
- Cargo and Mail Transportation volumes equal 6.17 million tons.
The CAAC has also said they will encourage large operators to build air express routes between their main hubs.
In contrast, the small and medium-sized operators will be pushed to focus on the restoration of the domestic and regional networks across China.
All of this will help bring the aviation market within China back to a stable condition to enable further recovery and future growth for the industry.
China’s CAAC will also aim to issue certificates to approximately 258 transport airports this year as well as enabling them to increase new infrastructure construction and upgrades.
Since the announcement of the recovery of the aviation sector within China, there has been a huge ramp-up in flight bookings both domestically and internationally. In line with this, the CAAC has since approved 10,313 extra flights across the country, with 3,459 of these destined to serve China’s primary cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
One of China’s largest operators, China Eastern Airlines (CES), has since allocated 753 of its aircraft for the ramp-up in air travel demand across the country, coupled with an average daily flight count of over 2,900.
Alongside China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines (CSN) has also said that they are planning to operate over 100,000 flights during the Spring Festival season resulting in an average daily flight count of nearly 2,800.
The CAAC’s Chief Pilot, Wan Xiangdong, has said, “Air transport volume in the coming Spring Festival travel rush is expected to return to 73% of the 2019 level, with the number of daily passenger flights reaching 11,000.”
Overall…
It is great to see that China is slowly returning to some form of normality again within its vast aviation industry, both domestically and internationally.
The number of flights serving just Beijing alone, across both of its international airports, Beijing Capital and the newer Beijing Daxing, will increase by about 44% when compared to 2022’s Spring Festival season, with the airports expecting to cater for approximately 62,000 flights.
