A Spring Airlines plane at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport in December 2019 Photo: cnsphoto

China's international cargo flights have seen rapid growth during the epidemic, as the flights grew nearly 18 percent from the pre-virus level, showing robust demand in the cargo industry during the epidemic outbreak. 

However, industry insiders warned that there are still challenges ahead for the cargo industry as currently the government is encouraging a passenger aircraft shift to all-cargo transport in a bid to make up for cargo shortages. 

"The most important thing is to lift daytime slots to support the 24-hour transit of freight transport," an anonymous insider told the Global Times on Thursday. 

The country's international cargo flights grew to 1,195 this week, up 17.85 percent from the pre-virus level, according to an official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) on Thursday.  

The CAAC official, Jin Junhao, attributed the growth to the measures the government has taken, including cutting international cargo flight costs, and encouraging the passenger aircraft shift to all-cargo flights to make up for the current cargo capacity shortage. On March 29, the day when international passenger flights were significantly reduced, the regulator approved the shift of 102 passenger aircraft to all-cargo flights for the week, he said. 

In March, a total of 528 overtime charter flights were approved, which was 4.47 times the level of the same period last year, and close to a quarter of the cumulative overtime charter volume in 2019, he added.

By comparing the daily aircraft utilization of the world's major cargo airlines in the 11th week of 2020 (March 16 to 22) with the peak value of December 2019, there was an overall increase in freight hours for airlines in the Chinese mainland, among which SF Airlines, China Cargo Airlines and YTO Cargo Airlines recorded growth of more than 20 percent in terms of daily aircraft utilization, data from information provider VariFlight showed. 

Through further analysis of average landing times, it can be seen that Chinese cargo flights still fall behind top global cargo airlines in daily aircraft utilization due to slot limits.

Furthermore, narrow-bodied aircraft hold the largest proportion in the cargo markets (71 percent), and the lack of wide-bodied freighters restricts the air cargo development in China, the anonymous insider added.

The regulator said on Thursday that it will improve the network layout, expanding the market players to provide further guarantees for the economy.