China Eastern Opens More Flights for 2020 Spring Festival Rush

The Chinese civil aviation department estimates that there will be 79 million travelers during the Spring Festival travel rush in 2020.

China Eastern Air Holding Co. Ltd (China Eastern) will optimize flight plans and increase flight numbers to guarantee a smooth experience for all passengers during the period.

According to the company, a total of 118,900 flights are arranged during the Spring Festival period, 6.11 percent more than those of last year. More than 20 million seats are provided, up 6.88 percent year on year.

This year's period starts 11 days earlier than the Spring Festival travel rush in 2019.

China Eastern predicts that the student passenger flow peak will begin on Jan 18 and a full-scale rush period will fall on the week before the Spring Festival Eve.

The return flow would obviously increase on Jan 30 and the return peak will be from Feb 1 to 4.

Traveling during the Spring Festival vacation has been a popular activity in past years. China Eastern has improved allocation of outbound air routes and will increase flights to hot destinations.

Coastal cities and northeastern cities are popular within China while countries like Japan and South Korea, as well as cities in Southeast Asia and Australia, are hot spots among Chinese tourists.

To meet the needs of the increasing number of tourists, China Eastern is flying wider aircraft.

For example, the A330 for Shanghai-Taipei and Shanghai-Seoul flights are being replaced by B777-300ERs and aircraft for other flights within the Chinese mainland are also shifting to wide-body ones like the B777-300ER, the A350 and the B789.

By Jan 8, nearly 75 percent of seats on flights to hot spots in China had been booked.

According to the company, air routes from Shanghai to Chinese cities including Sanya, Haikou, Harbin, Dalian, Shenyang, Changchun and Taiyuan are among the best sellers.

More than 90 percent of the seats of flights to North America, Southeast Asia, Australia and Europe had also been booked.

It is worth mentioning that the load factor of flights to Taipei has reached 95 percent.

This year also marks the first Spring Festival for Beijing Daxing International Airport.

China Eastern and its subsidiary China United Airlines will open more than 6,600 flights in the airport, flying on 92 routes to main cities in China like Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Haikou, Hangzhou, Qingdao and Harbin.

The routes also cover international hot tourism destinations including Fukuoka in Japan and Da Nang in Vietnam.

Nearly 640 more flights will be added during the festival, including flights from Beijing Daxing International Airport to Chengdu, Wenzhou, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Chongqing and Ningbo.

Return flights between the airport and Ordos, Mudanjiang, Zhuhai, Longnan and Yueyang will also be increased.

The first airline to operate at the new airport, China United Airlines, will start to use its four newly introduced aircraft.

So far, China United Airlines has sold 400,000 tickets for the Spring Festival travel.

Aircraft with wider bodies will be used to carry more passengers during the Spring Festival travel rush. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

It is estimated that more people will travel during the Spring Festival vacation in 2020 than did last year. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)