China’s top three state-owned airlines reported significantly narrower losses for the first half of 2023 as Beijing’s lifting of Covid-19 restrictions late last year unleashed pent-up demand for domestic travel.

Latest incident attracted less attention than Cathay scandal because latter involves Hong Kong, which has deeper mainland ties than Singapore, observers say.

The return of the 737 MAX to the skies in China is a positive sign for Boeing, which is taking steps to rebuild its business in the world’s second-largest aviation market.

Airlines overwhelmed with applications as a record 11.58 million college graduates are set to enter one of the country’s worst job markets in decades.

China Tourism Academy expects domestic tourists to take 4.55 billion trips this year, marking a huge increase from the zero-Covid ravaged 2022, but swelling household savings shows they may be more thrifty.

China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines said they will voluntarily delist ADRs from the NYSE, following the exits of five other Chinese state-owned enterprises in August.

While other countries have been resuming 737 MAX flights since 2020, China is the last major aviation market to give it the all-clear, having put a series of strict requirements in place.

Indonesia has become the first foreign market to accept delivery of China’s Comac ARJ21, which analysts expect will reach more markets in the future.

Boeing’s business has not been the same since the US-China trade war kicked off four years ago, but the company is looking decades down the line, and it expects the embattled 737 MAX to remain important.

Several of the C919’s most advanced components still come from overseas, and an adviser to the passenger jet programme says this puts China in a difficult position.

Since the start of the pandemic, combined losses at Air China, China Southern and China Eastern have reached US$18.5 billion.

Chinese embassies in Russia and the Philippines say more services and airlines will start operating between the countries.

The choice of Airbus over Boeing tips one of the most lucrative big-ticket deals in global commerce in Europe’s favour, taking it off the table as the US and China remain mired in trade disputes from the Trump era.

The move, a sharp reversal in China Southern’s plan, is a reminder of the uncertainty in a key market for Boeing as it works to resume its delivery of more than 300 assembled 737 MAX planes.

A flight attendant in China who was fired after posting online a bra selfie taken in a plane toilet is seeking to overturn a previous court’s decision that her sacking was legal.

The 737 MAX test flight on Friday is one of the first by a major Chinese airline since aviation authorities in the country grounded the model in March 2019.

Mainland Chinese airlines wanted IATA to allow them to follow President Xi Jinping’s 2060 emissions target, but industry backs earlier date.

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.

With Comac’s C919 passenger jet set for certification later this year, international aviation giants Boeing and Airbus will have to get used to sharing China’s narrow-body plane market.

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

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 expansion by China Southern, which flies to 243 destinations in mainland China and around the world, follows the solid recovery during the “golden week” of the nation’s national day in October, the longest public holiday since the coronavirus pandemic broke out in January.

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.