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China’s carriers adapt to Northern Summer season: more flights to Europe, fewer to Asia-Pacific
April 17th 2026
Airlines from China decided to navigate the upcoming Northern Summer season by adding capacity to Europe and reducing operations to Southeast Asia and Oceania, Yicai Global reports. Read More » Increased frequencies to Europe during the peak summer season allow Chinese carriers to capitalize on their cost advantage over European peers, as the Middle East conflict is driving oil prices up. However, a marketing executive at a Chinese airline told Yicai that European routes were profitable last month, but if fuel prices surge further, even more expensive ticket prices may not be enough to cover rising costs. Furthermore, if the Middle East conflict persists, some European airports may face severe jet fuel shortages. China Eastern Airlines (CEA) will increase the frequency of its flights to European destinations by 24% this summer-autumn season compared with a year earlier, with the peak at 410 weekly flights, up 35% in the period.
As Chinese airlines go all out to exploit the supply gap in Europe-Asia flights, they are also cutting some routes between China and Southeast Asia and Oceania to ease cost pressure from rising oil prices. Carriers cancel flights on a route if the expected revenue cannot cover rising costs from oil price fluctuations over an extended period, marketing executives at several airlines explained to Yicai. For example, as Australia is about to enter a low travel season, jet fuel costs there are much higher than in the Chinese mainland, and fierce competition makes it difficult to raise ticket prices, so flights to Australia have become among the first to be cut by Chinese carriers.
Earlier this week, a Spring Airlines executive said that long-haul international routes face greater pressure because jet fuel prices are higher overseas. Meanwhile, short-haul ones allow airlines to load enough fuel in the Chinese mainland for round-trip flights. Even though airlines worldwide have raised ticket prices and fuel surcharges to hedge against higher fuel costs, such measures are still insufficient to fully offset the additional cost pressure, the executives noted.
