China sees booming overseas cargo flights during Spring Festival

BEIJING -- China saw soaring overseas cargo flights during this year's Spring Festival holiday, according to the country's civil aviation authority.

The country's civil aviation sector handled a total of 2,553 overseas cargo flights during the seven-day holiday between Feb 11 and Feb 17, showed statistics from the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

The number rose by 212.48 percent year on year from that for the Spring Festival holiday in 2020, and by 258.57 percent compared with that for the same period in 2019.

Notably, the peak travel day Feb 17 saw the sector handling up to 302 overseas cargo flights, a 221.28 percent year-on-year increase.

China's civil aviation authorities and industry players at home and abroad have made concerted efforts to boost recovery and sustain the growth of the sector, which was hit hard by the pandemic.

The CAAC has introduced comprehensive measures to support the growth of the aviation logistics sector by simplifying approval procedures, offering more flight timetable choices and optimizing resource allocation.

All entities of the country's civil aviation industry followed the requirements of COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control, thus ensuring safe and smooth operation during the Spring Festival holiday, said the CAAC.

During the seven-day holiday this year, the country's civil aviation industry handled a total of 47,088 flights, with the on-time performance reaching 96.17 percent.

Meanwhile, the sector served 3.57 million passengers during the Spring Festival holiday. It represented a 45.16 percent and 71.64 percent year-on-year plunge compared with the volumes in the corresponding period in 2020 and 2019, respectively.