China’s ‘Big Three’ see 2022 traffic plunge to pandemic lows

China’s three largest carriers reported a new low for their full-year passenger traffic, a reflection of the impact of country’s long-drawn ‘zero-Covid’ battles. Traffic data from the ‘Big Three’ – comprising Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines – show that in 2022, passenger numbers, capacity and traffic all fell significantly year on year, as well as against pre-pandemic levels. Throughout 2022, China battled multiple waves of coronavirus infections, which, coupled with its hardline zero-infection stance, heavily impacted overall travel demand. Beijing subsequently announced plans in late 2022 to drop most pandemic curbs by the new year, though the move led to to a spike in domestic infections. For the year to 31 December 2022, Air China carried around 38.6m passengers across its network, a 44% decrease year on year. Against pre-pandemic 2019, where Chinese operators benefited robust travel demand, Air China’s passenger numbers plunged about 66%. Traffic, measured in RPKs, fell 42% for the year, while capacity shrank about 37%. As at end-2022, the Beijing-based carrier only operated about 33% pre-pandemic capacity system-wide. Story has details of others. <br/>