From 00:00 on January 8, 2023, my country will officially cancel the nucleic acid testing and centralized isolation of inbound personnel. According to the official WeChat public account of Beijing Capital International Airport, inbound passenger flights at Capital Airport will resume operations in Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 in Zone E from January 8. A number of airlines have also announced that all international flights destined for Beijing will no longer be diverted and will land directly in Beijing according to the flight plan.
At 10:36 on January 8, Cathay Pacific CX334 landed at the Capital Airport, becoming the first inbound flight at the Capital Airport that day. In addition, Beijing Daxing International Airport is also ready to welcome inbound passenger flights. According to news from Himalaya Airlines, the airline will resume direct passenger flight services from Beijing to Kathmandu from January 17, 2023. An Yongsheng, general manager of Himalaya Airlines in China, told the “Securities Daily” reporter that Himalaya Airlines has become the first overseas airline to resume flights at Daxing Airport. On the morning of January 17, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines will also resume international routes at Daxing Airport.
“Wide-body airliners with intercontinental flight capabilities are the main force of international routes. In the past three years, these aircraft have been used for domestic flights and forced to park, which has caused great cost pressure on airlines. With the further liberalization of immigration policies, for The loosening of airline operations will be reflected in the performance of listed airlines.” Gao Peng, a practitioner in the civil aviation industry, told the “Securities Daily” reporter.
Listed airlines are actively preparing
Orderly recovery of international routes
In order to meet the inbound and outbound passenger flow, the listed airlines are ready.
According to Air China, from January 8, 2023, 17 Air China international flights will resume direct flights to Beijing. Relevant staff of China Southern Airlines told the “Securities Daily” reporter that the company is currently actively preparing for outbound travel. From a supply point of view, the supply of domestic and foreign routes during the Spring Festival holiday is not a problem.
Juneyao Airlines announced that during the Spring Festival travel season, Juneyao Airlines will increase its routes to Thailand to three times a day, and will continue to apply for additional and resume other international and regional routes, including Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia, depending on policy optimization and market demand.
Spring Airlines also announced that it plans to resume Shanghai-Singapore routes in the future, adding flights from Shanghai to Bangkok and Guangzhou-Phnom Penh. Currently, Spring Airlines operates 18 international and regional routes.
“Not long ago, we have resumed some international routes.” Relevant staff of Hainan Airlines told the “Securities Daily” reporter that Hainan Airlines will continue to accelerate the resumption of international and regional passenger routes, giving priority to the restoration of international routes operated by Hainan Airlines in 2019 At the same time, we will step up planning and speed up the preparations for the resumption of flights. In 2023, we will resume flights and open new international and regional routes.
Talking about the timing of the resumption of flights and the opening of new flights, the above-mentioned Hainan Airlines staff said, “We will make preparations in accordance with the relevant entry-exit policies. As for which routes will be resumed and when they will resume, it will depend on the follow-up arrangements.” Public information shows, During the Spring Festival travel season, Hainan Airlines plans to operate 204 international flights.
Some overseas airlines are also preparing to increase the supply of related flights. Huang Kang, president of Delta Air Lines China, told the “Securities Daily” reporter: “We will continue to pay attention to market trends, and work closely with our partner China Eastern Airlines to prepare for the gradual recovery of China-US airline business.” Operate 4 China-US flights every week.
According to the official WeChat account of Singapore Airlines, with the gradual optimization of policies, more destinations will soon resume and more routes will gradually increase their flights. At present, Singapore Airlines operates flights to and from Singapore from six regions including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chongqing.
According to the data of Fei Chang Zhun, it is estimated that there will be more than 200 international flights on January 8, an increase of 88% compared with the same period last year. Wang Yi, an analyst at Feichangzhun International Air Tickets, said that he is cautiously optimistic about the resumption of international flights. At present, major domestic airlines are actively applying for resumption of international flights, and it is expected that the number of international flights will increase significantly by the end of March.
Fares for some routes
dropped to the level of the same period in 2019
With the optimization of entry and exit policies, passenger travel demand continues to be released.
According to data from an OTA platform, the number of inbound and outbound air ticket orders for travel on January 8 increased by 628% year-on-year, the highest since March 2020. Among them, inbound flight orders accounted for 48%, and outbound flight orders accounted for 52%.
From the perspective of air ticket prices, data from the Qunar platform shows that for international air tickets with a departure date during the Spring Festival travel period (January 8 to February 15), the average price paid for outbound air tickets is 3,481 yuan; the average price paid for inbound air tickets is 4,446 yuan.
Guo Lechun, deputy director of Qunar Big Data Research Institute, told the Securities Daily reporter that overall, the current international flight prices are still high. On the one hand, the current international flight volume is still insufficient, still less than 10% of 2019; On the other hand, the outbound and inbound bookings are uneven, which also pushes up the prices of related routes.
However, it is worth noting that the prices of some routes have fallen back to the same period in 2019. Qunar told the “Securities Daily” reporter that during the Spring Festival, the price of round-trip flights from the mainland to Hong Kong and Macau has dropped to the level of the same period in 2019. Another person in charge of an overseas airline company told reporters that the air ticket prices of international routes operated by his airline company are also close to the same period in 2019.
With the increase in the supply of flights, the price of air tickets for international flights is expected to fall further after the Spring Festival. An Yongsheng told the “Securities Daily” reporter: “After the Spring Festival, Himalaya Airlines may adopt promotional activities such as ticket discounts to attract more passengers to take flights.”
In Gao Peng’s view, as airlines need time to prepare for new openings and resumption of international routes, overseas travel agencies and agencies also need to adjust. This year’s international passenger travel will take several months to recover. For listed airlines, the recovery of domestic passenger business will be better than that of international business.
(Editor: Wen Jing)