CHINA. Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines Corp announced today that passenger traffic shot up by around +162% in July as the travel market bounced back from the SARS crisis.
China’s second largest carrier said that it carried 1.08 million passengers from 1 July to 29 July compared with just 412,000 in June.
It said passenger traffic was up +11.3% from July 2002, when it carried 970,000 passengers.
“July is the peak season for travel and lots of travel was postponed during the SARS outbreak,” said spokesman Sunny Zhou.
The outbreak was contained in June, when China Eastern’s passenger traffic fell -47% year-on-year. The airline expects to return to a full flight schedule this month.
