China Eastern Airlines is emerging as one of the biggest winners of China’s record-breaking Chinese New Year travel boom, with the Shanghai-based carrier riding a powerful surge in demand on routes to Seoul, Bangkok and a broad sweep of domestic cities. As the 40-day Spring Festival travel season continues to reset benchmarks for Chinese civil aviation, China Eastern’s network strategy, deployment of new aircraft and focus on leisure-oriented itineraries are putting it at the center of the country’s busiest holiday skies.
A Record Spring Festival Rush Reshapes China’s Skies
The Spring Festival travel season, known in China as Chunyun, has always been the world’s largest annual human migration. In 2025 it reached new heights, with civil aviation authorities reporting more than 90 million passenger trips by air over the January 14 to February 22 period, a year-on-year increase of over 7 percent and the highest Spring Festival air volume on record. Daily passenger numbers averaged more than 2.25 million, and at peak moments climbed even higher as returning workers, students and holidaymakers converged on airports across the country.
During the core eight-day Chinese New Year holiday itself, from January 28 to February 4, China’s airlines carried more than 18 million passengers, another record for the national aviation system. Flight punctuality was also remarkably strong, with on-time performance in the mid-90 percent range, underscoring how carriers and airports have refined their operations to handle sustained high loads rather than just a few spike days. For China Eastern, these favorable system-wide conditions created a powerful platform to push capacity into the most lucrative and in-demand markets.
Regulators attribute the surge in air travel to a combination of economic recovery, a growing preference for leisure trips during the holiday period, and policy support aimed at making travel easier. Expanded visa-free arrangements with several key tourism partners and an improved payment environment for international visitors have added further momentum, stimulating both outbound and inbound flows. In this environment, airlines with strong hubs, deep domestic coverage and a diversified international footprint stand to gain the most, and China Eastern sits squarely in that group.
China Eastern’s Holiday Performance Surges Ahead
Although full official figures for the 2025 and 2026 Spring Festival seasons are still being released in stages, China Eastern’s trajectory has been clear since the 2024 holiday period, when the airline operated nearly 25,000 flights and served more than 3.5 million passengers over eight days of Chinese New Year travel. That performance already marked a new high for the carrier and mirrored record-breaking volumes across China’s aviation sector.
On the back of that success, the airline substantially scaled up for the next travel rush. For the current extended Spring Festival seasons it has planned around 124,000 flights, representing a mid–single digit percentage increase in capacity compared with the previous year. Total available seats during the 40-day travel window are expected to approach 21 million, with several thousand additional flights scheduled beyond its regular timetable to meet surging demand to key tourist and hometown destinations.
Executives have described the shape of this demand as “early, fast and long.” Bookings began spiking well ahead of the official start of the travel season, with traffic rising rapidly into the first days of the rush. The extended length of the public holiday and the growing appeal of combining statutory days off with annual leave has also encouraged passengers to plan more ambitious itineraries, often involving multi-city routes that link hometown visits with winter sports, beach escapes or overseas city breaks.
Seoul and Bangkok Lead the Holiday Outbound Wave
Among international routes, services connecting China to Northeast and Southeast Asia have emerged as star performers, and China Eastern’s links to Seoul and Bangkok are at the front of that pack. Regulatory data for the 2025 Spring Festival period shows that routes between China and destinations such as the Republic of Korea and Thailand were among the most popular international corridors, with average daily international passenger flights rising more than 20 percent year on year and approaching pre-pandemic levels.
Bangkok, already a perennial favorite for Chinese tourists, has benefited from a powerful confluence of factors: relaxed visa policies, compelling value for money, family-friendly attractions and a dense network of flights from multiple Chinese cities. China Eastern has leaned into this demand with additional frequencies from its main Shanghai hubs, while also linking in second- and third-tier Chinese cities through connecting services. Seat factors on many Bangkok-bound flights during the core New Year period have been reported at very high levels, bolstered by both packaged tour groups and independent travelers.
Seoul, too, is seeing robust growth, driven by the enduring appeal of Korean culture, shopping and cuisine as well as the resumption of more normal business and student travel. China Eastern’s presence on trunk routes such as Shanghai–Incheon has made it a natural choice for travelers seeking convenient schedules and seamless onward connections inside China. The strong performance of Korea-bound flights fits into a broader pattern in which short-haul regional markets are recovering faster and stronger than some long-haul sectors, offering airlines a profitable avenue for redeploying capacity.
Domestic Network: From Ice and Snow to Island Sunshine
Domestically, China Eastern is capitalizing on a striking polarization in traveler preferences. On one side of the spectrum, “ice and snow” destinations in the northeast and northwest have become breakout stars, with cities such as Harbin, Changchun and Urumqi benefiting from social media buzz and expanding winter sports infrastructure. On the other, tropical and subtropical locations including Hainan’s Haikou and Sanya, as well as popular coastal or mountain retreats, are drawing visitors in search of milder weather and resort-style relaxation.
To capture this bifurcated demand, China Eastern has expanded frequencies and opened or reinforced routes from Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu to a wide roster of smaller and mid-sized cities. Additional flights have been scheduled to winter destinations like Changbaishan and Daqing, giving skiers and snow tourists more options to combine family reunions with seasonal getaways. At the same time, more widebody and high-capacity aircraft are being deployed on routes into Hainan and other warm-weather hubs, particularly on peak outbound and return days.
The result is a dense, holiday-focused network that moves beyond the traditional emphasis on homeward-bound workers to embrace leisure travelers, student groups and multigenerational families. The airline’s domestic connectivity not only supports its own profitability but also serves national goals of spreading tourism income more evenly across regions. Many smaller cities that once relied primarily on rail for Spring Festival traffic now find themselves firmly integrated into the holiday aviation grid.
C919 and Fleet Strategy Power Capacity Growth
Underlying China Eastern’s Spring Festival surge is a deliberate fleet strategy that leverages new-generation aircraft, particularly the domestically developed C919 jetliner. The carrier is currently the largest operator of the C919, and by early 2025 had built a fleet of about ten of the narrowbody aircraft, all of which have been pressed into service for the travel rush. Since entering commercial operation in 2023, the airline’s C919s have carried more than one million passengers, many of them on high-profile trunk routes linking Shanghai to Beijing, Chengdu, Xi’an and Guangzhou, as well as on select services to Hong Kong.
Deploying the C919 during the Spring Festival season serves multiple purposes. From an operational standpoint, the aircraft offers fuel efficiency advantages compared with older models, helping offset the cost pressures of dense holiday flying. Strategically, fielding a high-profile Chinese-made jet at the center of the country’s most important annual travel event showcases the maturation of China’s aerospace manufacturing and signals confidence in the aircraft’s reliability under peak loads.
Beyond the C919, China Eastern’s broader fleet plan for the travel season involves the coordinated use of more than 800 aircraft of varying sizes and ranges. Narrowbodies dominate short- and medium-haul sectors, while widebodies continue to play a key role on busier domestic trunk routes and selective international services. The airline’s ability to match aircraft type to market demand allows it to fine-tune capacity in response to booking trends, diverting additional seats to especially hot routes such as Shanghai–Bangkok or Shanghai–Seoul when warranted.
Service Enhancements Tailored to Holiday Travelers
Spring Festival travel is about far more than raw seat counts. For millions of passengers, this is the most emotionally charged journey of the year, and China Eastern has placed visible emphasis on soft services to match. At its main hubs in Shanghai Hongqiao and Pudong, the airline has expanded dedicated assistance for unaccompanied minors, elderly travelers and passengers requiring mobility or medical support. Extra staff and volunteers help handle peak crowds at check-in, security and boarding gates, smoothing the experience for families traveling together.
Digital tools also play a growing role. Real-time notifications on flight status, boarding gate changes and baggage delivery times help passengers navigate airports that can feel overwhelming during peak days. Online and app-based customer service channels supplement traditional counters, allowing travelers to change bookings, request special assistance or resolve issues without queuing.
Onboard, the focus has been on reliable, punctual operations and small touches that underline the festive atmosphere. Cabin crews often incorporate Lunar New Year greetings and décor, while in-flight catering is adjusted, where possible, to include holiday-themed items. For passengers flying to international destinations such as Seoul and Bangkok, these details reinforce a sense of connection with home even as they celebrate the New Year abroad.
Visa-Free Policies and Cross-Border Revival
One of the most powerful tailwinds supporting China Eastern’s international performance this season is the rapid expansion of bilateral and unilateral visa-free arrangements between China and several popular outbound destinations. Thailand and some other Southeast Asian countries have moved to permanently waive visas for Chinese travelers, while China itself has broadened short-stay visa-free access for passport holders from a range of nations. These changes make it significantly easier for Chinese residents to plan last-minute trips, especially to nearby cities that pair well with the timing of the Lunar New Year holidays.
The impact on demand has been striking. Travel agencies and booking platforms have reported sharp year-on-year increases in reservations to Bangkok and other Thai destinations during the Spring Festival period, with airlines like China Eastern benefiting directly through higher load factors and stronger yields. Similar trends are visible on routes to Korea and Japan, where improved entry procedures and pent-up interest in cultural experiences are driving a rebound in city-break traffic.
At the same time, inbound travel to China is gradually returning, assisted by greater payment flexibility for foreign visitors and efforts to streamline airport processes. This two-way revival positions carriers with strong regional networks, such as China Eastern, to act as bridges between East Asia’s major cities, connecting tourism flows in multiple directions. For travelers, the net effect is a denser, more competitive route map that offers more choices and often more attractive pricing than in the immediate post-pandemic years.
Outlook: Sustained Growth and Intensifying Competition
Looking ahead, industry forecasts from China’s civil aviation authorities point to continuing growth in both annual and holiday-period air travel. Passenger trips by air in 2024 already hit an all-time high, and projections for the 2026 Spring Festival season suggest that the 95 million mark could be approached or exceeded over the 40-day rush. For China Eastern, this creates both opportunities and challenges as it seeks to maintain its momentum on headline routes while deepening its footprint in emerging markets.
Competition will be intense. Rival Chinese carriers are also adding capacity, deploying new aircraft types and bidding aggressively for the same leisure travelers heading to Seoul, Bangkok and other favored destinations. Low-cost airlines and foreign competitors are reasserting themselves in markets where China Eastern once faced less pressure, forcing the carrier to keep innovating on both price and product. Meanwhile, operational resilience will remain under scrutiny, as winter weather and airspace constraints continue to test the system’s ability to deliver high punctuality at very high volumes.
Yet the overarching narrative is one of confidence. With its combination of powerful Shanghai hubs, expanding C919 fleet, deep domestic coverage and strong regional partnerships, China Eastern is uniquely well placed to ride the next wave of growth in Chinese and Asian air travel. The record-breaking Chinese New Year surge, marked by soaring loads on routes to Seoul, Bangkok and a lattice of domestic cities, offers a vivid preview of what that future may look like: busier skies, more connected travelers and an airline industry that has firmly moved from recovery into a new phase of expansion.