Flag-carrier Air China says it will mount more than 70,000 flights during the Spring Festival travel window—10 percent more than in 2025—as China’s aviation market edges back toward full normality.
Domestic coverage gets the biggest boost, with dense shuttles planned on the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Greater Bay Area and Chengdu-Chongqing corridors. Capacity to the northeast—traditionally underserved in winter—will rise 15 percent, partly to support ski tourism ahead of the Harbin Ice Festival.
If you’re planning to take advantage of these additional flights, VisaHQ can streamline the visa application process for China and dozens of other destinations, offering step-by-step online guidance, real-time status updates and dedicated customer support—see https://www.visahq.com/china/ for details.
![Air China to operate 70,000+ flights during holiday rush, adds international seats]()
For international travellers, the airline is reinstating wide-body service to hubs such as Sydney, Melbourne and Frankfurt and has earmarked nine domestically built C919 jets for high-frequency regional flights linking Beijing Capital and Daxing airports with Hangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Xi’an.
Corporate travel managers welcome the extra seats, noting that average international fares out of China are still around 20 percent above 2019 levels. Additional frequencies during a fixed, high-demand period should dampen price spikes and improve connection reliability for time-sensitive project teams.
Air China also confirmed that its new ‘paperless cabin’—mobile boarding passes paired with facial-recognition e-gates—will be rolled out on 60 percent of domestic departures by mid-February, cutting boarding times and reducing contact points for foreign passengers unfamiliar with Chinese mobile apps.
Domestic coverage gets the biggest boost, with dense shuttles planned on the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Greater Bay Area and Chengdu-Chongqing corridors. Capacity to the northeast—traditionally underserved in winter—will rise 15 percent, partly to support ski tourism ahead of the Harbin Ice Festival.
If you’re planning to take advantage of these additional flights, VisaHQ can streamline the visa application process for China and dozens of other destinations, offering step-by-step online guidance, real-time status updates and dedicated customer support—see https://www.visahq.com/china/ for details.
For international travellers, the airline is reinstating wide-body service to hubs such as Sydney, Melbourne and Frankfurt and has earmarked nine domestically built C919 jets for high-frequency regional flights linking Beijing Capital and Daxing airports with Hangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Xi’an.
Corporate travel managers welcome the extra seats, noting that average international fares out of China are still around 20 percent above 2019 levels. Additional frequencies during a fixed, high-demand period should dampen price spikes and improve connection reliability for time-sensitive project teams.
Air China also confirmed that its new ‘paperless cabin’—mobile boarding passes paired with facial-recognition e-gates—will be rolled out on 60 percent of domestic departures by mid-February, cutting boarding times and reducing contact points for foreign passengers unfamiliar with Chinese mobile apps.
