Carriers restart some suspended flights as COVID-19 slows down

Chinese carriers have started resuming some of their domestic and international services that were suspended due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, while several global airlines have expressed optimism that the aviation market will see a strong rebound after the country brings the epidemic under control.

"Our services have been growing steadily since Feb 21. We expect more than half of the suspended flights to be operational by the middle of this month," said Zhang Wu'an, spokesperson of Shanghai-headquartered budget carrier Spring Airlines.

"The novel coronavirus outbreak around the Lunar New Year holiday dealt a great blow to the aviation sector this year," said Chen Zhuo, a senior analyst with China Merchants Securities.

Originally, this year's Spring Festival travel rush was supposed to extend to about 40 days from Jan 10 to Feb 18, with over 3 billion passengers trips, including 79 million passenger trips by air, according to Zhao Chenxin, deputy secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission.

However, the unexpected COVID-19 outbreak has kept people indoors, and the aviation sector saw passenger load slump to less than 20 percent in February, said Yu Nan, an industry analyst with Haitong Securities.

According to Yu, with the number of people returning to work increasing steadily, the aviation sector is seeing a gradual recovery.

By the end of February, China Eastern Airlines restarted 1,050 flights, with most of them catering to employees from Yunnan, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces working in areas like Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong.

The Shanghai-based carrier plans to restore more than 2,700 flights before March 28, and to operate about 1,300 flights on a daily basis.

Air China, which continued operating flights to 48 major international destinations, restored 1,105 flights by the end of February.

China Southern Airlines restored nearly 4,800 domestic flights as of Feb 27, with most of the flights connecting cities less hit by the novel coronavirus epidemic, according to the China News Service.

According to Zhang from Spring Airlines, the low-cost carrier famous for a load factor of more than 90 percent during peak travel seasons, the carrier currently has a load factor of below 50 percent.

Industry experts said aviation companies will see low load factors for a while, as it takes some time for demand to bounce back.

International carriers are also actively seeking possibilities to restore their flights to and from China.

Kamal Refaat, general manager of EgyptAir China, is currently in Cairo, Egypt, exploring the possibilities of resuming flights soon.

"We are confident about the China market. We believe the epidemic will be contained soon, and the impact will fade out as time goes by," said Refaat.

Michael Zhou, CEO of AirAsia China, said: "AirAsia will work with China to overcome the difficulties and we believe the worst is soon coming to an end!"

Refaat said: "We believe that the impact of the epidemic is only temporary, and the China market will see large growth afterward."