China has witnessed surging demand for air travel during the ongoing summer holiday season, with more direct flight routes being launched to facilitate passenger travel, indicating a rapid recovery of the civil aviation industry in a post-pandemic era.
Data from multiple online travel platforms show that Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea are the most popular overseas destinations for Chinese tourists this summer, and the prices of air tickets for some international routes are even lower than domestic air ticket prices.
Take Shanghai as an example. The prices of direct flights from Shanghai to Seoul, Bangkok, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh, Kuala Lumpur and other cities in August are around 800 yuan (about 112 U.S. dollars) each, including tax, which are significantly lower than those for domestic routes of similar distances.
According to data from Air Travel, the average price of international economy class air tickets including tax in the summer of 2024 is about 18 percent lower compared with 2023.
"We see that international air ticket prices have fallen so far this summer, and the main reason is actually the resumption of more international flight routes. In terms of the departure sites, some non-first-tier cities such as Hefei, Changsha, and Wenzhou have had direct international flights," said Xiao Peng, a researcher at Qunar Big Data Research Institute.
Data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China show that the number of international passenger flights has exceeded 6,300 per week, an increase of nearly 10 percent since the end of June. The number of international routes has further increased. In July, multiple new international routes including the Chongqing-Penang rout, the Yantai-Kuala Lumpur route, saw their first flights.
Meanwhile, additional international routes were launched from traditional tourist cities in China such as Huangshan, Zhangjiajie and Sanya, attracting throngs of foreign tourists during the summer vacation.
Apart from inbound tourist visits, the number of domestic tourist travels has also shown steady growth so far this summer, driven by family travel, educational tours, summer retreats and graduation trips.
China's summer travel boom boosts civil aviation industry's rapid recovery
