On the evening of November 14, the Consular Department of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a travel advisory urging Chinese citizens to avoid traveling to Japan in the near term.
On November 15, multiple airlines announced special change and refund policies for flights to Japan, including Spring Airlines.
On November 17, Spring Airlines—whose international routes account for a significant share of its operations—saw its stock drop 5.04%, marking its largest single-day decline in 2025.
The carrier, which focuses its international network on Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia, not only brought the Japanese market in its strategic plans early on, but has also deeply tied itself to this core market through localized operations.
Japan and South Korea routes were a key focus of the airline’s capacity deployment in the first half of the year, with Japanese routes long serving as one of the company’s major profit pillars in the international market.
In the first half of 2025, Spring Airlines’ capacity on Japanese routes increased by over 116.8% year-on-year, and by 77.7% compared with the same period in 2019, making Japan its largest international market.
As one of the earliest Chinese carriers to enter the Japanese regional market, Spring Airlines covers major cities such as Tokyo and Osaka, as well as resort destinations including Sapporo and Fukuoka, forming differentiated competitive advantages.
Passenger traffic driven by the post-pandemic revival of China–Japan tourism had long kept these routes at high load factors, even generating positive returns during the off-season in 2024.
However, geopolitical risks are now disrupting this pattern:
Starting November 15, Spring Airlines urgently rolled out a special ticket handling plan, allowing passengers to change or cancel tickets free of charge. The potential loss of passenger traffic could create significant uncertainty for the airline’s planned growth during the Spring Festival peak season.
For Spring Airlines, a carrier known for its low-cost model, fluctuations on Japanese routes have a more pronounced ripple effect.
Low-cost airlines rely on high load factors to spread fixed costs; once demand in a core market declines, it not only directly reduces revenue but may also trigger chain reactions such as underutilized capacity and higher per-unit fuel costs.
This helps explain why its stock on November 17 recorded the largest single-day drop of 2025—the capital market has already picked up on the short-term slowdown risk facing its core profit engine.
