China Eastern Airlines soars to new passenger records

China Eastern Airlines carried out 24,800 flights and served more than 3.56 million passengers over the eight-day Spring Festival holiday, according to the Shanghai-based carrier.

The nation's civil aviation sector completed 17.99 million passenger trips during the 2024 Chinese New Year holiday - which fell between February 10 and Saturday (Feb 17) - or 2.25 million passenger trips per day, hitting new records, data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China showed.

Some 137,000 flights were conducted nationwide during the holiday, or 17,117 flights on a daily basis, up 33.2 percent year-on-year, the CAAC added.

Attaching great importance to passengers' safety and health, China Eastern has constantly optimized its flight network home and abroad. For example, all the four C919s in the China Eastern's fleet were put into service for the peak traveling season for the first time by operating in Beijing-Shanghai and Shanghai-Chengdu routes.

The four jets operated 66 commercial flights and served 9,670 passenger trips throughout the eight-day vacation, according to the airliner.

During the same period, China Eastern carried out 2,843 flights to destinations beyond Chinese mainland. Thanks to the continuous recovery of outbound tourism market and the visa-free policies introduced by China and a slew of countries, China Eastern's international flights to destinations including Singapore; Los Angeles; Phuket, Thailand; Cairns, Australia; and Toronto, Canada saw their occupancy rate reach 90 percent during the holiday period.