BEIJING: Amid China’s recently optimized COVID-19 management policy, the Spring Festival travel rush is buoying the country’s civil aviation sector, which had been hit hard by the pandemic in the past three years.
During the 40-day holiday travel period, which began on Saturday and is expected to continue till Feb 15, more flights are planned, services onboard and at airports will be improved and routine disinfection carried out for better epidemic control.
About 11,000 flights have been scheduled on average each day of the holiday travel period, about 73 percent of the volume during the same period in 2019, according to Wan Xiangdong, chief pilot of the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
Spring Festival starts on Jan 22, and the travel rush is expected to peak before and after the seven-day celebrations, as well as after Lantern Festival, which falls on Feb 5. Popular flight routes include Beijing to Sanya, Hainan province; Beijing to Shanghai; Beijing to Haikou, Hainan; Shenzhen, Guangdong province, to Kunming, Yunnan province; Shenzhen to Chongqing; Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, to Kunming.
Airline companies are being encouraged to schedule more domestic flights, if possible, to meet the increasing demand for travel on routes such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, to Sanya, Haikou, Chengdu, Sichuan province, and Chongqing, Wan said.
–The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
