Pesticides and spray machines to help Pakistan tackle locust plague and test kits for COVID-19 were about to sent to Karachi from Pudong airport in Shanghai early Monday: Photo: courtesy of Shanghai Eastern Airlines.

Shanghai Airport (Group) Ltd, a major aviation hub in China, predicted losses in 2021 could reach 1.64 billion ($259 million) yuan to 1.78 billion yuan due to the epidemic. 

The company said on Monday that passenger throughput and the completion of aircraft take-off and landing at Pudong airport were lower than expected at the beginning of the year, and the spread of the epidemic in many parts of China have also limited the recovery and growth of domestic airline business volume.

In addition, due to the global epidemic situation, the international airline business volume is still being greatly affected, the company said. 

Shanghai airport reported a net loss of 1.267 billion yuan in 2020. 

The airport has been in the frontier of COVID-19 prevention work. Shanghai reported one new local infection of COVID-19 on Monday. The patient works as a dispatch worker for import goods at Shanghai Pudong International Airport.

All operation of Pudong airport is normal and passenger and cargo flights are not affected, Zhao Haibo, vice-president of Shanghai Airport Group, said Monday, adding that the airport had quickly activated its emergency response mechanism for epidemic control.

The group will strengthen risk prevention in the cold chain process, according to Zhao.  

The pandemic is still harming the civil aviation industry. Another listed airport, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport Co, predicted on Thursday that its 2021 net loss may be 381 million to 465 million yuan, and the company attributed the loss to the impact of COVID-19.

Nanjing Lukou International Airport in East China's Jiangsu Province reopened on August 26, 2021, after a closure of nearly one month.

Local authorities canceled all flights from the airport at the end of July as a new cluster of infections began to emerge on July 20 when a few cleaners at the airport tested positive during routine testing.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released data for global air cargo markets showing slower growth in November 2021. Supply chain disruption and capacity constraints have reduced demand, despite economic conditions remaining favorable for the sector.

Asia-Pacific airlines saw their international air cargo volumes increase by 5.2 percent in November 2021 compared to the same month in 2019. This was only slightly below the previous month's 5.9 percent expansion. International capacity in the region dropped slightly in November, down 9.5 percent compared to 2019, according to IATA.

Global Times