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China Eastern declares COVID-19 still having significant impact
August 17th 2021
China Eastern Airlines (CEA) said domestic passenger numbers rose 21.2%, to 8.7 million in July, from 7.2 million passengers a year earlier. Read More » Despite the year-on-year improvement, the July figure was 9.4% below the 9.6 million passengers CEA flew in pre-COVID-19 July 2019. "Since mid-May 2021, there were fluctuating cases of COVID-19 that occurred successively in various parts of China," CEA said in its monthly traffic report. "The COVID-19 pandemic still has a significant impact on the air transportation business of the company, while the time span and severity [prompts] great uncertainty." Domestic passenger load factor was 75.4% in July compared with 73.3% in July 2020 and 82.8% in July 2019. The SkyTeam alliance member added two A320neos and one A350-900 to its fleet of 743 aircraft for the reported month: 286 self-owned, 265 under finance lease and 192 under operating lease.
