The number of passengers carried by Chinese airlines during this year's Spring Festival travel rush was less than half the level of two years ago, reduced by the global pandemic.
Chinese airlines carried 35.39 million passengers in the 40-day travel rush, which ended on Monday, down 7.78% from 2020 -- and also down by more than 50% from 2019, data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) showed on Monday.
CAAC said that the average passenger load factor during that period increased by 4.59 percentage points compared with the same period in 2020, but it was down by 18.77 percentage points compared with the same period in 2019.
The CAAC said the number of passenger trips during the Spring Festival holidays this year was much lower than in previous years.
The Chinese government in January encouraged people to stay put over the holidays to reduce the risk of infections during the travel rush, following the resurgence of sporadic COVID-19 cases at that time.
During the 2021 Spring Festival travel period, pre-sales of air tickets departing and arriving in Beijing dropped by more than 60% compared with the levels of 2019 and 2020, travel platform qunar.com said on January 28.
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