China: October air traffic climbs again as ‘golden week’ holidays and cheap deals drive recovery

China’s air travel industry continued to rebound in October as pent-up demand during the “golden week” holiday and so-called fly-at-will promotions boosted traffic. The recovery was, however, slower than in previous months as new Covid-19 cases arose. The number of air passengers reached 50.32m in October, bringing it back to 88.3% of the level a year earlier, according to CAAC News, a media outlet run by the Civil Aviation Administration of China. That was an increase from 47.94m passengers in September. Analysts believe many people grabbed the opportunity to travel during the festive period after months of being stuck at home under coronavirus lockdown – a concept dubbed “revenge travel”. “It extended the trend of releasing pent-up travel demand, especially during the golden week holiday, while airlines pushed out a variety of ‘fly at will’ promotion packages,” said Qi Qi, an associate professor at Guangzhou Civil Aviation College. Air travel in mainland China has gradually recovered in recent months, ahead of the rest of the world, after the coronavirus pandemic was largely brought under control domestically. It peaked in the golden week holiday, a period of festivities that follows China’s national Day on October 1. Low air fares for domestic flights, and fly-at-will deals have stimulated demand. Tickets for the most popular routes, such as those between Beijing and Shenzhen, and Beijing and Shanghai, listed by China’s online agencies have been selling at a discount of up to 90%. October’s recovery had slowed down from previous months. The month-on-month growth in the number of air passengers was 0.8 percentage points in October, way down from 13.1 and 8.5 percentage points respectively in September and August.<br/>