Three Boeing 737-8 aircraft park at the Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport on Monday. China's civil aviation authorities ordered the grounding of all commercial flights of the fleet after a deadly crash of the aircraft in Ethiopia that killed all 157 on board. Photo: VCG

International flights are not expected to increase soon due to seriousness of the ongoing pandemic abroad, Shang Kejia, an official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said on Tuesday, as advising against overseas travel during the upcoming holidays.

At present, Chinese and foreign airlines are operating about 200 round international passenger flights a week, representing just 2.2 percent of the total number of flights prior to the pandemic, Shang said.

At present, international flights mainly guarantee the most basic connectivity with the lowest frequency, and the conditions for resumption and increase are not available for the time being, Shang noted, adding that this year's Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays are still not a good time to travel abroad.

According to Shang, in July and August, China's civil aviation market saw significant declines due to the flare-up of coronavirus infections, with passenger traffic down 42 percent compared to 2019, and down 16.6 percent compared to 2020.

In August, the scale of civil aviation production dropped significantly, showing a double decline in passengers and cargo due to a localized outbreak of infections in Nanjing, Shang added.

Wang Haibo, another official from CAAC, said that although the sporadic outbreaks have affected the recovery of the industry, the domestic aviation still showed significant potential servicing a market of 1.4 billion people. 

Wang said the administration will strengthen the testing and disinfection for inbound cargo, especially flights which originate from high-risk countries.

CAAC said it will offer financial support for domestic airlines to assist them to recover from the pandemic, including lifting restrictions on cargo flights. 

The CAAC said it will continue to support airlines to carry out the exchange of flight schedules with more flexible policies and support domestic airlines to take advantage of flight schedules, which foreign airlines have no plan to operate, so as to fully utilize available resources.

Currently, there are around 100,000 domestic scheduled passenger flights per week, 4,250 more flights for Mid-Autumn Festival and 4,406 for National Day holidays have been added to meet expected demand.

CAAC data show that in August, affected by the Nanjing outbreak, the total transportation turnover, passenger transportation, and cargo volume fell by 35.6 percent, 51.5 percent and 5.6 percent year-on-year. 

Global Times