China’s aviation sector in clear skies of profit after 4 turbulent years

China’s civil aviation industry has turned a profit for the first time since 2020 – a milestone for one of the sectors hit hardest by the Covid-19 pandemic – with officials expressing optimism about its prospects for sustained growth.

In 2024, the industry reduced its losses by 20.6 billion yuan (US$2.8 billion) from the previous year and recorded a 25 per cent increase in total traffic, Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) Administrator Song Zhiyong announced at an industry work conference on Thursday.

This reduction, he said, was enough to bring the sector out of negative figures.

Further improving profitability and transporting 780 million passengers have been set as headline goals for civil aviation in 2025.

Official data shows that the industry endured four consecutive years of losses after the pandemic brought air travel to a halt. China’s international flights – which saw far steeper declines than domestic routes as most cross-border trips were cancelled – still lagged behind pre-pandemic capacity last year, though 84 per cent of 2019 traffic had been recovered.

In a report last year, state news agency Xinhua said the sector would transition from explosive post-pandemic recovery to steady growth in 2024, with “returning to profitability” identified as a major benchmark for performance.

Last year, the industry transported a record 730 million passengers, Song said, well above the forecast of 690 million made at an industry conference in early 2024.