China's top airlines post wider 2021 losses amid drive to stamp out COVID

China's three biggest airlines on Wednesday reported wider losses in the final quarter of 2021, marking the second year in the red due to COVID-19 as hopes for a recovery remain distant while the country tries to halt the virus' fast spread.Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines, said its net loss rose to 4.05b yuan ($637.64m)from 2.95b yuan in Q3, taking its full-year loss to 12.2b yuan. That is deeper than an 11.8b yuan loss in 2020. Beijing-based Air China said its net loss widened to 6.32b yuan in Q4 from 3.54b yuan and it posted a full-year loss of 16.6b yuan. China Southern fell to a Q4 net loss of 5.98b yuan, after posting 1.43b yuan in the red the previous quarter. It reported a full-year loss of 12.1b yuan. The Guangzhou-based airline also forecasted a pickup in deliveries of the Boeing 737 series aircraft from 2022, as Chinese carriers are set to resume commercial services of the 737 MAX, which was grounded in China for over two and a half years. China's domestic travel market, which had rebounded quickly due to its successful containment of the COVID-19 virus in the early days of the pandemic, is nursing heavy losses as authorities struggle to stop the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant under its strategy of eliminating cases. More than two-thirds of planned flights are being cancelled every day across China, according to third-party aviation data providers, while financial capital Shanghai is in the middle of a two-stage lockdown of 26m people.<br/>