China Eastern sets a zone at the airport in Guangzhou, the scheduled destination of the crashed flight, to receive family of victims. Photo: VCG




Shares of Chinas top three airlines fell as mainland stock markets opened on Tuesday morning, after a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 with 132 people onboard crashed Monday afternoon in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, deepening concerns over the aviation sector already battered by the COVID-19 epidemic. 

Shares of China Eastern fell by over 6% as mainland stock markets opened on Tuesday morning, followed by shares from other aviation companies.

At the markets opening, a basket of 15 aviation shares recorded an average loss of over 3 percent.

Shares of China Southern fell by more than 3 percent at the markets opening while Air China fell by more than 3.9 percent.

Shares of smaller airlines including Juneyao Airlines and Spring Airlines also fell.

As of press time, the aviation sector was able to pair some of the losses with an average decrease of 0.48 percent but China Eastern fell by 6.6 percent.

There have been concerns that the air crash on Monday might deal a significant blow to the civil aviation sector, already one of the worst-hit areas in the economy by the pandemic that has lasted for three years.

The top three airlines reported a combined loss of over 200 billion yuan ($31.43 billion) in 2020 and 2021, according to domestic financial news portal Caixin.

The combined estimated loss by the three companies ranges from 36.8-43.3 billion yuan for 2021.