China’s sluggish overseas flights create ‘worrying’ trend amid US, Europe tensions

The recovery of international flights to and from China has remained sluggish compared with a quick rebound of domestic trips, a trend the head of a key American business chamber said was “worrying” amid tensions with the United States and Europe.

Flights to and from China carried around 2.2 million passengers in the first three months of 2023, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said on Tuesday, representing only 12.4 per cent of the level seen in the first quarter of 2019 before the outbreak of the coronavirus.

But in the first three months of the year, passengers taking flights within mainland China reached 88.6 per cent of pre-pandemic level at 126 million, the CAAC said.

“The biggest issue right now is there just aren’t enough flights put on between the US and China. I suppose it’s true for Europe and China as well,” said Michael Hart, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

Many routes simply do not exist, and costs are “too high”, which are keeping people from travelling, added Hart.

“Those are both very worrying trends … We’d love to see more flights. It’s kind of fundamental to the things that we do. We’ve had a number of CEOs visiting. We would like to see more folks coming,” added Hart.

In a sign of a “continuous recovery”, international flight traffic in March did recover to 18 per cent of pre-pandemic level, according to the CAAC.

“In general, we see an improving trend in China’s civil aviation sector in the first quarter,” said Li Yong, deputy director of CAAC’s aviation safety office.

Li expects the pace of the recovery to continue in the coming months as businesses and individuals are increasingly resuming activities and travel since China dropped most of its Covid-19 restrictions late last year before reopening its borders in early January.

China has resumed flights with 59 countries, representing around 82 per cent of the pre-pandemic level, according to Xu Qing, deputy head of the CAAC’s transport department, with Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia the top sources of inbound visitors.

“The CAAC will approve applications from domestic and foreign airlines for new and old flights in time, help them tackle difficulties and solve problems during the resumption of international flights, and ensure these flights return to normalcy in a steady and orderly manner,” said Xu.

China’s top three airlines – Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines- reported a combined loss of 108.7 billion yuan (US$15.8 billion) last year, according to their annual reports after Beijing’s strict zero-Covid policy disrupted both domestic and international travel.

The New York Times reported last month that the US Department of Transportation is considering banning Chinese airlines from flying over Russia en route to and from the United States as American carriers are losing business as they are not allowed to use Russian airspace as part of restrictions introduced following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.