Anti-epidemic staff check travelers' health code at the entrance of Zhengzhou East railway station on May 4th, 2022. Photo: VCG

As Hohhot, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and Zhengzhou, Central China's Henan Province are facing pressure from the increasing number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in consecutive days, in and out bound flight cancellations at airports in the cities have reached nearly 100 percent, to prevent the risk of spillover.

According to local health commission, on Monday, 13 new local confirmed cases were reported in Inner Mongolia, including 7 in Hohhot. And 152 new asymptomatic cases were reported, 144 of them in Hohhot.

As of Monday, there were 133 local confirmed cases in Henan in the latest outbreak, with another 485 asymptomatic cases being under medical observation.

In addition to Hohhot and Zhengzhou, according to flight information provider Flight Master, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport has canceled 888 flights as of 12 pm on Monday as the city in South China's Guangdong Province is facing pressure from COVID-19 spillovers from other provinces and from overseas, and there has also been a local rebound of infections.

Besides, the Dandong Langtou Airport of Northeast China's Liaoning Province canceled all flights from Tuesday after the epidemic prevention and control headquarters announced implementation of temporary static management for three consecutive days. As of Monday, a total of 2,034 confirmed cases have been reported in the province.

According to the Flight Master's report, Civil Aviation Administration of China operated nearly 31,000 flights last week, with an average daily flight volume of 4,435, up 15.5 percent from the previous week, but down 53.6 percent from 2021 and 69.3 percent from 2019. The flight operation rate was only about 27.9 percent.

The top three airports with the highest cancellation rates were in Hohhot, Urumqi and Yinchuan, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, where COVID-19 infections flared up. The airports with relatively low cancellation rates were from Shanghai, Southwest China's Chengdu and East China's Hangzhou.

Global Times