SOURCE / ECONOMY
Inbound flight bookings surge as COVID restrictions are relaxed
Published: Aug 30, 2022 10:06 PM
Beijing Daxing International Airport Photo: Xinhua

Beijing Daxing International Airport Photo: Xinhua

The number of inbound flight bookings during the first 10 days of September has more than doubled compared with the same period last year, an industry report said on Tuesday.

Inbound flight bookings during the period are also up more than 30 percent compared with the same period last month, the report by Trip.com sent to the Global Times showed.

The number of inbound flights via Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions increased nearly four times year-on-year and nearly 60 percent month-on-month, according to the report.

The favorable travel policy is triggering more inbound flight routes, and it's also promoting outbound routes too. The number of outbound bookings to Oceania increased eight times year-on-year, Trip.com said. 

China is gradually relaxing international travel restrictions. The latest move was made by the General Administration of Customs, which scrapped requirements for visitors to report information regarding nucleic acid test results, infection status and vaccination dates -- moves by Chinese authorities to make it more convenient for international visitors.

The ninth version of the health declaration form, which comes into effect on Wednesday, said international visitors could report their health status online by filling a form on the related WeChat account or webpage. 

Earlier in August, China's aviation regulator decided to relax rules on suspending overseas flights due to COVID-19, which said that any flight with five detected infections would be suspended for one week, when the confirmed cases accounted for 4 percent of all those onboard, and for two weeks when the confirmed cases accounted for 8 percent.

Previously, flights with more than five but fewer than 10 confirmed COVID-19 passengers were suspended for two weeks.

On June 28, China cut the period in centralized quarantine for international arrivals and close contacts of COVID-19 patients from 14 days to seven days.

From August 1 to 24, a total of 685 inbound passenger flights arrived in China, with an average of 200 flights per week, an increase of 16 percent compared with the daily average in July. Over 30 percent of the flights were from South Korea and Japan, data from information provider VariFlight showed.