At the 2024 Civil Aviation Work Conference held on January 4, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (hereinafter referred to as the "Civil Aviation Administration") stated that civil aviation transportation production will "return to natural growth" in 2024. According to expectations released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, China's domestic air passenger traffic is expected to reach 630 million in 2024, exceeding 2019 by 7.7 percentage points. The international passenger transport market will accelerate its recovery, and it is expected that the number of flights per week will reach about 6,000 by the end of 2024, recovering to about 80% of the number before the epidemic.


(Photography by Wang Xiaoyu)

Since the first half of 2023, many control measures have been gradually lifted, and the civil aviation passenger transport industry has entered a rapid "recovery period" with the rapid recovery of tourism and business travel.

According to statistics released by the Civil Aviation Administration, in 2023, the industry will complete a total transportation turnover of 118.83 billion ton-kilometers, a passenger transport volume of 620 million, and a cargo and mail transport volume of 7.354 million tons, representing year-on-year increases of 98.3%, 146.1%, and 21% respectively, and returning to 91.9%, 93.9%, and 97.6% of 2019 respectively.

Although there are still many restrictive factors for the resumption of international flights in a short period of time, international passenger flights have recovered from less than 500 flights per week at the beginning of the year to more than 4,600 flights per week in 2023, an increase of 9.6 times, and the number of countries that have resumed flights has reached 89.2% before the epidemic.

Among them, passenger traffic between China and Europe has recovered to more than 60% of the pre-epidemic level, regular direct flights between China and the United States have increased to 63 flights per week, and the recovery level between countries co-building the "Belt and Road" is 6.2 percentage points higher than the overall level of international routes.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China said, "This year we will implement the results of the meeting between the heads of state of China and the United States and promote a significant increase in direct flights between China and the United States; actively expand air rights arrangements with the Belt and Road Initiative countries and deepen project cooperation with Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and other regions; improve the efficiency of the use of existing third and fourth air rights resources and support airlines in making good use of overseas fifth freedom rights according to the needs of route network expansion; promote the optimization of visa and entry-exit policies, improve the level of customs clearance facilitation, and improve the efficiency of entry and exit of international flights."