CHINA EASTERN AIRLINES FLIES NEARLY 16.5 MLN PASSENGERS DURING SPRING FESTIVAL

KUALA LUMPUR, March 12 (Bernama) -- China Eastern Airlines, along with its subsidiaries Shanghai Airlines and China United Airlines, operated a total of 106,800 passenger flights, transporting nearly 16.5 million passengers, with an average load factor exceeding 82 per cent.

According to statistics released by China Eastern Airlines, the airline carried an average of more than 412,400 passengers on a daily basis during the Spring Festival travel rush, with the peak period occurring between Feb 14 to 16, with each day exceeding 480,000 passengers.

As Shanghai’s largest home based airline, China Eastern Airlines facilitated over 44,000 arriving and departing flights at the Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport and Shanghai Pudong International Airport during the travel rush.

China Eastern Airlines in a statement said it served over 6.85 million passengers, including more than 530,000 transit passengers and over 4,000 unaccompanied minors.

"Outbound travel" emerged as one of the key words for this year's Spring Festival travel rush. Benefitting from favourable factors such as the implementation of visa-free policies, the airline’s flights to Southeast Asia and between China and Italy remained popular.

In particular, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand saw a large influx of passengers after relevant visa-free policies were implemented.

In the first two months of this year, China Eastern Airlines' flights to Malaysia had an average load factor of 82.7 per cent, while the passenger volume on flights between China and Italy saw a year-on-year increase of 62 per cent.

Furthermore, China Eastern Airlines' industry-leading "full-journey online" in-flight Wi-Fi service also experienced a peak in usage during this year's travel rush, with statistics showing that 540,000 passengers utilised the Wi-Fi service on more than 10,787 wide-body aircraft flights.

-- BERNAMA