Photo: Courtesy of China Southern Airlines

Chinese airlines are ramping up efforts to expand their global networks as the summer vacation approaches, driven by fast demand with countries and regions along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) increasingly becoming top destinations for Chinese carriers.  

Starting from Tuesday, China Eastern Airlines is expected to open a direct flight from Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, to Istanbul, Turkey. This will be the second direct international route to Turkey opened by China Eastern after the Shanghai-Istanbul route, a new step for interconnection among countries along the BRI.

China Southern Airlines operated its maiden flight from the Beijing Daxing International Airport to Dushanbe, Tajikistan on June 16, the first direct flight between the two capitals by a Chinese airline, aiming to boost bilateral exchanges and regional connectivity. 

China Southern said on Monday that the group plans to operate a total of 320,000 flights on more than 970 domestic routes and more than 260 international and regional routes during this year's summer travel season.

China Southern also plans to open a new direct flight route from Guangzhou to Almaty on Wednesday, a new direct flight route from Guangzhou to Tashkent on June 30, and a new direct flight route from Harbin to Vladivostok on July 1. Also, it will increase the number of flights on popular routes such as those to Central and West Asia, Southeast Asia, and Australia, providing more choices for passengers traveling abroad during the peak summer season.

As the summer travel season approaches, driven by strong leisure and business demand, domestic and foreign airlines have stepped up their capacity deployment on route networks around the world, Luo Chengzhao, an analyst at aviation data consultancy CADAS, told the Global Times on Monday.

Domestic airlines are even more motivated to increase capacity on international routes, and routes to Central Asia and other destinations along the BRI have also become new key expansion directions for domestic airlines, with a clear momentum of capacity growth, according to Luo. 

As of June 16, the number of inbound and outbound air ticket bookings for the first month of the summer travel season (July 1-31) exceeded 3.8 million, up about 8 percent year-on-year, according to statistics industry information provider Umetrip sent to the Global Times. 

According to the Beijing Daily, the number of Central Asian passengers at the Beijing Daxing International Airport has increased significantly thanks to its network. Between January 1 and June 20, the total number of Central Asian passengers entering or leaving the Beijing Daxing International Airport exceeded 86,000, an increase of more than 23.5 percent year-on-year.

Luo said Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and Malaysia are the top five markets for the summer travel peak, with more additional flights expected to Japan, the HKSAR, and Thailand.

Cathay Pacific, which was recognized as one of the world's top three airlines in the prestigious 2025 Skytrax World Airline Awards, said the Cathay Pacific carried 36.1 percent more passengers in May 2025 compared with May 2024, while available seat kilometers increased by 31.2 percent. In the first five months of 2025, the number of passengers carried increased by 28.4 percent year-on-year.

Demand for business travel also remained robust, supported by traffic from the HKSAR to the Chinese mainland and various long-haul destinations in the Americas and the UK. Looking ahead, the airline anticipates demand during the summer travel peak to be stable and sound, with Southeast Asia being especially popular among customers from its home market, Cathay Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Lavinia Lau said.

The group said that its global network has reached 100 passenger destinations worldwide. During the peak summer season this year, more than 300 pairs of flights will be operated between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland each week, an increase of more than 40 percent than last year. The company said that bookings for first and business class are also rising fast.

Chinese experts said that the nation's expanding circle of friends is also driving the travel fever. 

On June 9, China began to implement a trial visa-free policy for ordinary passport holders from Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain, expanding the nation's unilateral visa-free circle of friends to 47 countries.