Passengers at the Beijing Daxing International Airport on October 11, 2023 Photo: Li Hao/GT

The recovery in the Chinese aviation industry will continue, with the aviation regulators predicting that air travel will hit a record high during the coming Chinese Lunar New Year holidays.

The 40-day travel rush that will last from January 26 to March 5 could hit 80 million passenger trips or 2 million per day on average, said officials from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) on Monday. 

The number of daily flights will reach 16,500, the CAAC added. 

In the domestic market, the flow of air travel is affected by staggered holidays, the return to work and leisure travel. 

Given to the extension of this year's Chinese Lunar New Year holidays, the "family visit plus tourist" mode will be popular. Visitors to tourism spots in South China such as Sanya and Haikou, Hainan Province, as well as ice tourism cities in Northeast China and Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region will show a significant increase, the CAAC said. 

Outbound travel will peak during the holidays. Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and other nearby countries and regions will become hot choices, the CAAC said, due to easier visa policies and customs clearance procedures.  

The CAAC is encouraging more airlines to increase flights. Airlines plan to add more than 2,500 new international scheduled flights and charter flights.

The number of additional flights to Japan and Thailand will exceed 600, followed by more than 200 to South Korea and 150 to Singapore.

In September 2023, Thailand approved a temporary visa waiver for visitors from China and Kazakhstan. China and Thailand are in close communication on mutual visa exemptions, China's Foreign Ministry said on January 2. 

China's unilateral visa-free policy for ordinary passport holders from these countries took effect on December 1, 2023, the Xinhua News Agency has reported.

After a year of recovery, the vitality of the civil aviation market has picked up and returned to normal, said Liang Nan, director of the transport department of the CAAC.

China's civil aviation sector will enter a new cycle of sustained, rapid and healthy development, Liang said. 

Industry data showed that domestic passenger air traffic in 2023 exceeded the pre-epidemic level, with an increase of 1.5 percent compared with 2019, and the fastest recovery among all transportation modes in China. 

The CAAC predicted that in 2024, the transportation turnover, passenger volume and cargo volume are all expected to exceed the pre-epidemic levels.

The year-on-year passenger growth is expected to reach a double-digit rate.

As of the end of 2023, international scheduled passenger flights stood at 4,782 per week, about 62.8 percent of the pre-epidemic level, the CAAC said on Monday. 

Flights operated by domestic airlines stood at 73.5 percent of the pre-epidemic level, compared with 48.1 percent for overseas carriers.

Global Times