China’s international flights set to take off, buoyed by May Day holiday, but US travel suffering delays
- National carrier Air China will start to add flights to Riyadh, Dhaka, Sao Paulo and Havana via Madrid from Sunday
- Bookings ahead of the five-day May Day holiday next week have surged, but flights to the US are experiencing a sluggish recovery
A resumption of international flights to and from China may be faster than expected, buoyed by the restoration of outbound travel, analysts and local media said, although the recovery of connections with the United States remains slow.
Air China would progressively roll out four international routes starting from Sunday, the airline said on its official WeChat account on Tuesday.
Routes between Beijing and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Dhaka in Bangladesh would be added, while the Chinese capital would also be reconnected with Sao Paulo in Brazil as well as Havana in Cuba via a stopover in the Spanish capital of Madrid.
The flight to Sao Paulo is China’s first direct route to Brazil – one of the longest in the world – and Air China hopes it “will strengthen the connection between China and South America, and help Chinese enterprises better expand the South American market”.
We believe [Chinese airlines] will see a strong recovery for both supply and demand side as May Day travel heats up
The national carrier said it had restored 84 per cent of its international routes to pre-pandemic levels in 2019, with routes to Southeast Asia surpassing the previous level by between 20 and 30 per cent.
