Airlines are diverting flights, and warehouses are said to be overflowing at Shanghai Pudong International Airport after five workers tested positive for the coronavirus in recent days.

Embattled Chinese conglomerate HNA Group will delay the submission of a proposal for its restructuring, as China’s state-owned carriers have steered clear of bailing out the country’s biggest private-sector carrier, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The biggest challenges are once again in Asia where. The broadest virus outbreak in China since the pandemic first began has forced officials there to suspend flights and increase testing of airport workers. That’s taken a chunk out of the nation’s massive domestic aviation trade, which has performed the best among the largest pre-pandemic global markets.

The Chinese government formed the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) in 2008 to design and build the single-aisle C919.

China’s aviation regulator says design modifications must be recertified, pilots sufficiently trained and findings into two crashes released before Boeing’s 737 MAX can return.

The promising outlook for a Covid-19 vaccine has given stock analysts a dose of optimism about beaten-down Chinese airlines and airport operators.

China’s answer to the Boeing-Airbus duopoly has hurdles to overcome before its planned roll-out next year, and though the chief designer of the C919 jet says it is on schedule, not all industry analysts agree.

The number of air passengers reached 50.32 million in October, 88 per cent of the level a year earlier, as frustrated travellers stuck at home for months during lockdown took to the skies during the ‘golden week’ holiday.

The move is part of long-standing China’s efforts to diversify ownership structures among its state-owned enterprises and comes at a critical time after China Eastern posted a net loss of 8.5 billion yuan in the first half due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The resumption in travel underscores how life in China, the first major global economy to emerge from coronavirus lockdowns, is almost back to the pre-outbreak levels.

Global airlines have been walloped by the coronavirus pandemic, as governments imposed unprecedented border restrictions and people became more reluctant to travel and passenger traffic is not expected to recover before 2024, the International Air Transport Association said.

Even airlines that received government bailouts and slashed costs are looking for new revenue streams as they burn through cash while fleets are largely grounded and people stay at home

Passenger numbers for Air China, China Eastern and China Southern rose about 25 per cent month on month in July as travel within the mainland picked up.

The gradual resumption in air service, even as China and the US are headed in opposite directions in their coronavirus cases, offers the first breather for a global aviation industry poised for a 50 per cent decline in 2020 sales, according to a June forecast by the International Air Travel Association (Iata).

China Eastern Airlines, one of the country’s three largest carriers, has reconfigured its unlimited flights package to cover only weekday trips, a move that industry observers said was targeted at business travellers.

The reciprocal moves reflect the horse trading that two world’s two largest economies have to engage in, as they each struggle to restore growth amid the worst slump created by the coronavirus pandemic.

Shanghai-based China Eastern will establish Sanya International Airlines with partners including a unit of Trip.com as it eyes growth in air traffic to Hainan, a southern island earmarked by President Xi as a future free-trade hub.

The aviation industry, which is expected to lose US$314 billion in revenue this year, is picking up, leading to big run-ups in airline stocks in the Asia-Pacific region this week.

Chinese authorities say American and other foreign carriers can fly into the country from next week, after US announced that passenger flights from China would be banned from June 16.

The tit-for-tat retaliation underscores the fight for market share in one of the most lucrative routes of what remains in global aviation, in an industry that needs an estimated US$200 billion in aid to pull through its worst slump in history.

China’s largest airlines have raised an unprecedented 90.5 billion yuan in super-short maturity debt for lifeline since the outbreak of coronavirus brought the aviation industry to a standstill.

The potent rebound in Chinese airport operators is captivating investors and analysts who are betting on a quick turnaround from the catastrophic shutdown of the aviation industry this year.

Transport department says US carriers are being denied the right to compete on equal basis with Chinese counterparts.

It highlights the biggest challenge to re-establishing international travel; there’s little agreement on what could limit the risk of spreading Covid-19 across borders.

Airlines have a long way to go to recover air traffic especially in international routes, while China’s recovery is seen accelerated by business trips and cargo flights.

China’s biggest airlines have become among the top picks at some of the nation’s largest brokerages as they trade below book values, a historical turning point in market valuation.

Stocks listed on mainland Chinese exchanges rose on the last trading day of April, with the Shanghai Composite Index gaining 4 per cent for the month in a welcome change from March’s declines.

China’s three largest airlines posted their biggest slide in earnings since the global financial crisis, in a foretaste of the industry slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic.