News
China’s carriers reduce wide-body operations due to subdued international demand
November 28th 2024
China Southern Airlines (CSA) is selling its 787-8s and Air China and China Eastern Airlines (CEA) are switching focus to narrow-body aircraft and accelerating retirement of older wide-bodies. Read More » The revised strategy is the result of an oversupply of large aircraft amid a sluggish recovery of international routes particularly to Europe and North America, Yicai Global reports. It added China-North America rotations have recovered to less than 30% of pre-pandemic volumes. Middle East, Singapore, Japan and South Korea customers have delivered a surge in wide-body orders, but China is not part of this trend. Yicai reports Mainland industry insiders said the airline consensus is to limit wide-body fleet growth especially as they are considered uneconomical to operate on China’s domestic networks.
