Beijing Daxing International Airport welcomes its first day of peak travel as the Spring Festival travel rush started on January 26, 2024. Photo: Li Hao/GT

Chinese airlines are planning to add more flights to cope with surging outbound travel demand with the implementation of visa reciprocity policies between China and many countries.

China Eastern Airlines plans to launch a route from Beijing Daxing to Kuala Lumpur on January 31, with four flights every week, Guo Ting, a market manager from China Eastern Airlines told the Global Times on Friday. 

The number of overseas routes operated by China Eastern at Daxing airport will reach eight by then, Guo added. 

The outbound travel is expected to reach a new peak during this year's Spring Festival period brought by more overseas destinations implementing visa-free policies to Chinese travelers, Guo said. 

The remarks came at the first day of China's 40-day Spring Festival travel rush, which the airport predicted that it will handle 5.5 million passenger trips for the travel rush until March 5.

Beijing Daxing International Airport welcomes its first day of peak travel as the Spring Festival travel rush started on January 26, 2024. Photo: Li Hao/GT

Our outbound travel demand is surging recently, for example, the demand for the route between Beijing Daxing to Doha launched in October of last year is rising, and we deploy wide-body aircraft to cope with the demand, Liu Zheng, a manager from Xiamen Airlines told the Global Times.

Both inbound and outbound travel at Beijing Daxing International Airport has continued to increase as the airport has formally restarted such services on January 17, 2023. The inbound and outbound passenger trips in 2023 reached 2 million, and the airport has opened more than 30 overseas routes by the end of 2023. 

The inbound and outbound passenger trips in 2024 of the airport are expected to exceed four million, Wang Qiang, deputy general manager of aviation business department of Beijing Daxing International Airport told the Global Times.

Shanghai-based Spring Airlines also told the Global Times on Friday that it will resume, add or increase 64 routes in this Chinese Lunar New Year travel rush, most of which are international routes.

Beijing Capital International Airport expected that overseas passenger flow will reach 1.41 million passenger trips during the period, with an average of 35,000 per day. 

Chinese market watchers attributed to the rising demand to the visa exemption launched by more countries, and the latest example is that China and Singapore on Thursday agreed on mutual visa exemption, which will officially come into effect on February 9, 2024. 

To date, China has established mutual visa exemption agreements with 157 countries, covering various types of passports. It has also reached agreements or arrangements to simplify visa procedures with 44 countries and has achieved comprehensive mutual visa exemption with 22 countries, including Singapore, the Maldives, and Kazakhstan.

In addition, over 60 countries and regions offer visa-free entry or visa-on-arrival facilities to Chinese citizens.

Various airlines have proposed to arrange more than 2,500 new international scheduled flights and overtime charter flights during the Spring Festival travel period, and the most of newly planned will be the markets in Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea and other surrounding countries and regions, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said on January 8.