Air ticket bookings surge 300% amid growing demand

China’s civil aviation market is experiencing an accelerated recovery on the back of rising flights volume, with domestic summertime ticket bookings surging about 300 percent over the past week and market watchers predicting that China is witnessing a turning point as more cities are moving to lift travel restrictions.

Domestic summer air ticket bookings in the third week of June rose nearly 300 percent from the previous week, with air ticket searches growing by more than 70 percent, according to travel platform qunar. com on Tuesday.

Increased demand has also driven up flight prices. The average price of domestic passenger flight tickets increased to 685 yuan ($ 102.4) in June from 494 yuan in March, an increase of about 39 percent, qunar. com told the Global Times.

The increase is also an echo for rising demand for air travel, sparked by relaxed travel restrictions across a number of provinces and regions such as Northwest China’s Qinghai, Northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Central China’s Hubei, on the eve of the traditional summer holiday season.

Major airports in many Chinese cities have seen steady operations. At Chengdu Shuangliu Airport in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, daily takeoffs and landings have remained above 400 since May, with daily passengers having exceeded 40,000, CCTV reported, citing an airport representative.

China’s travel market “welcomes its turning point as more cities in China gradually lift travel restriction crossing provinces,” qunar. com said.

Meanwhile, hotel bookings across the country over the last weekend exceeded the same period of 2019. Hotel bookings in Changsha, Central China’s Hunan Province increased by 58 percent over the same period in 2019, while Sanya in South China’s Hainan had almost returned to 2019 levels.