Today (7th) is the International Civil Aviation Day, after many years of continuous vigorous development of the global civil aviation industry, the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic has forced people to break the connection between people, and the civil aviation industry is in the "front line" affected by the epidemic, and the industry as a whole has been frustrated. So, what is the situation of China's civil aviation market?
In the first three quarters, China's civil aviation passenger traffic has recovered to 70% of the same period in 2019
According to data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, civil aviation production and transportation showed a gradual recovery trend in the first three quarters, with passenger traffic of 353 million passengers, recovering to 71.0% in the same period of 2019. Especially during the Eleventh holiday this year, the performance of the civil aviation industry can be described as relatively eye-catching, with nearly 9.3 million passengers transported by civil aviation and a flight normality rate of more than 93%.
Zhang Qing, deputy director of the Development Planning Department of the Civil Aviation Administration of China: The domestic civil aviation operation situation has remained generally stable, and the normal flight rate has remained at a high level. However, due to the impact of multiple epidemics at home and abroad, civil aviation transport production fluctuated significantly, as of the end of October, the total turnover of transport, passenger traffic and cargo and mail transport volume respectively reached 69.9%, 66.4% and 80.5% of the annual target, and the transport production situation is still not optimistic. At present, the global covid-19 epidemic has rebounded again, and the domestic epidemic situation is still severe and complex.
After combing through the reporter, the reporter found that in the first three quarters of this year, China Southern Airlines, Air China, China Eastern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Spring and Autumn Airlines, and Juneyao Airlines completed a total of 261.102 million passenger transportation, a decrease of about 34% over the same period in 2019. Compared with the same period in 2019, the passenger recovery rate of Spring Airlines was the highest of about 99.8%, which has basically recovered to the same period in 2019; followed by Juneyao Airlines with a recovery rate of 86.2%; in addition, the passenger recovery rate of the three major airlines in China, East and South Africa exceeded 60%, and Hainan Airlines exceeded 50%. The operating data and financial reports of the six major domestic listed airlines in the first three quarters show that the demand for domestic routes continues to pick up, the international route operation data remains low, and it still takes time for international passenger flow to recover.
Zhang Qing, deputy director of the Development Planning Department of the Civil Aviation Administration of China: China has a super-large domestic demand market, and the aviation market has great potential. Airlines, airports and other industry units will launch personalized, differentiated and targeted aviation service products according to the diversified needs of passengers to maximize the activation of the aviation market.
Meanwhile, Boeing's 2021 Civil Aviation Market Outlook shows that the fundamentals of The Chinese economy lay the foundation for healthy air traffic growth, with China's domestic passenger market surpassing the European internal market by 2030; and China's domestic passenger flow is expected to surpass the North American internal air travel market by 2040. More than 400,000 new aviation professionals, including pilots, maintenance technicians and flight attendants, will be needed by 2040.
The global civil aviation industry has slowly recovered from the impact of the epidemic
For most of 2020, the global civil aviation industry is "surviving in a hopeless situation", and although the situation of the entire industry has improved in 2021, it will take time to fully recover.
The civil aviation industry is a major engine of the world economy, and before the epidemic, its contribution to the world economy reached $2.7 trillion, supporting the employment of 65.5 million people worldwide, which is roughly equivalent to the total economic volume and total population of the United Kingdom. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the main tone of the global civil aviation industry has been to strive to emerge from the impact of the epidemic.
Last year, the civil aviation industry suffered huge losses, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which saw a 60% drop in global passengers and a $391 billion in aviation revenue. After entering this year, the aviation industry in all regions has improved a lot, but there is still a certain gap compared with the pre-epidemic level, especially in international travel. According to a report released by the International Civil Aviation Organization on December 1, in terms of the number of seats provided, there is still a 62% gap between international travel and 24% of domestic travel in 2021 compared with 2019 levels. The gap between the two means that airlines will still lose $252 billion in operating income, and $72 billion to $73 billion, respectively.
At the same time, due to the different epidemic prevention policies and the degree of openness, there are also certain regional differences in the degree of recovery of the aviation industry. Overall, North America is the closest to recovering to pre-pandemic levels, while recovery in the Asia-Pacific region has been relatively slow.
The full recovery of the aviation industry will take some time. However, compared with passenger transport, the impact of the epidemic on air cargo transport is different, in the early stage of the epidemic, air cargo traffic once rose sharply, and even many manned aircraft were changed to cargo aircraft.
According to the latest data released by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), in October this year, global air cargo demand continued to maintain at a level above the pre-epidemic level in 2019, with demand in October this year being 9.4% higher than in the same period in 2019, of which international air cargo demand was 10.4% higher.
The impact of the epidemic on the civil aviation industry will also be transmitted to the wider economic field through related industries such as aircraft manufacturing and service industries. Therefore, under the epidemic, many governments have also actively rescued the civil aviation industry, but the subsequent recovery still needs to depend to a large extent on the development of the epidemic.
John Slatley, CEO of GE Aviation Group: Through the previous few days of communication with many airlines around the world, we have learned that they still believe that narrow-body airliner operations will not return to 2019 levels until early 2023, and long-distance wide-body airliner operations will not return to pre-pandemic levels until early 2024.
Opmi Kerong Strikes Frequent Travel Restrictions The recovery of the global aviation industry is long and difficult
The recovery of the global civil aviation industry depends largely on the development of the epidemic. Recently, due to the rapid spread of the Omiljun strain, many countries around the world have shifted from gradually opening their borders to adopting travel restrictions. According to CNN statistics, as of December 5, Beijing time, at least 41 countries and regions around the world have imposed travel restrictions on some African countries and even wider areas, and the recovery of the international aviation industry has once again cast a shadow.
Since the end of November, many flights have been cancelled in a short period of time since travel restrictions were imposed in many countries. Airport passengers in countries such as South Africa are seriously stranded.
Passengers stranded in South Africa: We received an email informing us that our flight had been cancelled and there was no more news after that.
Traveller stranded in South Africa: I'm going to take several exams next week, and it's happening too fast.
In the case of the United Kingdom, one of South Africa's main tourist sources, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, the only two airlines in the country to operate direct flights between the United Kingdom and South Africa, were scheduled to operate 289 flights between the United Kingdom and South Africa in December, carrying about 80,000 passengers. However, after the United Kingdom introduced travel restrictions on 10 African countries such as South Africa, two airlines said they had planned to reduce the number of flights between the United Kingdom and South Africa.
When it comes to the impact of the Olmikron strain on the global aviation industry, some airlines use the term "heavy blow" to describe the possible serious situation.
Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airlines: December is a very important month for the air travel business, and if an airline loses its business this month, or even an entire winter, then the airline will suffer a heavy blow.
At present, the characteristics of Theochron are still being studied globally, and most airlines are still waiting and seeing, and there are no plans to announce the cancellation of international flights on a large scale for the time being. At the same time, a number of airlines have launched mobile phone applications to quickly verify the nucleic acid test results and vaccination certificates submitted by passengers to ensure smooth check-in and safe travel as much as possible.
The analysis pointed out that European airlines are more dependent on international routes and may be more affected. For airlines, flexible routing and rapid response to travel restrictions will be key to surviving the pandemic.
Source: CCTV Finance