A Fuxing high-speed train travels along the rails in Changzhou, East China's Jiangsu Province on January 8, 2026. China's railways handled nearly 4.59 billion passenger trips in 2025, up 6.4 percent year-on-year, underpinned by a steadily expanding and modernizing rail transport system, official data showed. Photo: VCG

During the just-concluded nine-day Spring Festival holiday from February 15 to 23, Chinese railways sent 121 million passengers, averaging13.41 million passengers per day, marking an 11.5-percent increase compared to the same Spring Festival travel period last year, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday, citing data from China State Railway Group Co.

On February 23, 18.733 million passengers were transported, setting a new historical record for single-day passenger volume during the Spring Festival travel season, China's national railway operator said. 

The operator said the data was driven by a mix of passengers returning home, work-related travel, and tourism flows, keeping passenger traffic at a high level. 

During this year's Spring Festival holiday, national border inspection authorities saw a total of 17.796 million cross-border trips made by Chinese and foreign nationals, averaging 1.977 million per day, marking a 10.1 percent increase compared to the average daily number during last year's Spring Festival holiday, the National Immigration Administration said on Tuesday.

The 9-day-long 2026 Spring Festival holiday fueled strong travel demand among Chinese passengers. Data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) showed that during the 2026 Spring Festival holiday, the country's civil aviation industry transported a cumulative total of 22.05 million passengers, with an average of 2.45 million per day, representing a 7.7 percent increase in daily average compared to the same period of the 2025 Spring Festival travel season. 

A total of 171,000 flights were operated, with an average of 18,956 flights per day, reflecting a 4.4 percent increase compared to the daily average of 18,154 flights during the same period in 2025, the CAAC said.

During the nine days, China Eastern Airlines has transported over 4.33 million passengers, with an average of over 481,000 passengers per day, a year-on-year increase of 6.5 percent; it operated 28,500 flights, averaging over 3,169 flights per day, a year-on-year increase of 2.2 percent. 

The peak of passenger travel occurred on February 22, with China Eastern Airlines operating 3,287 flights and transporting 526,000 passengers, setting a new historical record for the airline's single-day passenger transport volume.

Domestically, "ice and snow tourism" routes to places like Harbin, Changchun, Changbai Mountain, and Altay continued to lead the Spring Festival travel market, while popular "winter escape" destinations such as Sanya, Haikou, and Kunming were also highly sought after by passengers, the airlines said.

For international and regional flight routes, the five routes with the highest average passenger loads were Shanghai Pudong--Barcelona, Shanghai Pudong - Toronto, Taiyuan - Kunming - Bangkok, Shanghai Pudong - Vancouver, and Shanghai Pudong - St. Petersburg. 

Global Times