An aircraft from China Eastern Airlines at Fukuoka Airport in Japan on December 14, 2025 Photo: VCG

On Monday afternoon, Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines issued notices, stating that for tickets issued before January 26, with flight departure dates between March 29 (inclusive) and October 24, 2026 (inclusive), Japan inbound, outbound, or transit flights are eligible for free refunds and changes. Prior to this, the free refund and change policy was only applicable until March 28.

According to data from the information platform Flight Master, the cancellation rate for flights from the Chinese mainland to Japan in January 2026 reached 47.2 percent, an increase of 7.8 percentage points compared to December 2025. As of January 26, a total of 49 routes scheduled for February 2026 have cancelled all flights.

The 2025/26 winter-spring flight season spans from October 26, 2025, to March 28, 2026. The 2026/27 summer-autumn flight season will run from March 29, 2026, to October 24, 2026. The announcements indicate that the free refund and change policy for flights to Japan has been extended to cover this year's summer-autumn flight season.

Recently, given the deteriorating public security in Japan, a surge in criminal cases targeting Chinese nationals, and a spate of consecutive earthquakes striking certain regions, causing injuries, and the Japanese government has issued warnings about further quakes, the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Chinese embassy and consulates in Japan on Monday reminded Chinese citizens to refrain from traveling to Japan in the near term as the Chinese New Year draws near, according to a notice released by the Department of Consular Affairs of Chinese foreign ministry on its official WeChat account.

This year's nine-day 2026 Spring Festival holidays, the longest on record, are projected to significantly boost the popularity of outbound travel from China.

In a shift from the previous year's travel patterns, recent data from several online tourism platforms indicates that Thailand has overtaken Japan as the top outbound destination for the Spring Festival holidays.

According to data sent by Qunar to the Global Times, the top 10 destinations for hotel bookings from mid-January through the Spring Festival period are Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Singapore, Russia, Vietnam, China's Macao Special Administrative Region, Australia, and Indonesia. Notably, Japan did not make the list.

The number of visitors from the Chinese mainland to Japan plunged 45.3 percent year-on-year in December, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday, citing data from the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO). The organization said that tourists from the Chinese mainland fell to about 330,400 people in December 2025.

Global Times