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Air fares in China remain flat despite record summer demand
September 3rd 2024
Price sensitive travellers are keeping Chinese air fares low despite tight capacity and record air passengers carried in the northern summer holiday peak. Read More » China’s civil aviation industry logged a 12% increase, to 140 million passengers flown in July and August against the same months a year ago. On average, 2.2 million air travellers per day chose to fly with a Chinese airline in the 62 days, statistics released by flight booking platform, Umetrip, show. It was an 18% increase from the same period in 2019, it said. Air passengers peaked at 2.45 million on August 10, a record for people traveling by air in a single day, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said. At August 20, more than 2.3 million passengers a day flew in the month. Flights increased 7%, to one million rotations, and were up 9% from 2019. Despite the relatively tight capacity, the average price of a domestic air ticket, excluding tax, declined 10.7% compared with the same months in 2023. “As soon as the price of air tickets goes up, the load factor comes down,” a source told Yicai, and said passengers are more price sensitive, there is fierce competition between airlines and also with high speed rail operators.
