(Yicai) Feb. 24 -- The number of passengers traveling by air over the 40-day Chinese New Year travel rush this year reached a record high, with flight numbers also jumping to a new record.

The country's civil aviation sector recorded some 90.2 million passenger trips and 739,000 flights between Jan. 14 and Feb. 22, up 7.4 percent and 8.3 percent, respectively, according to data released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China yesterday. The number of inter-regional passenger trips in the country also hit a record high of 9.02 billion.

The average number of round-trip international passenger flights jumped 27 percent to 1,921 a day, mainly thanks to China's visa-free entry policy, the CAAC noted.

International passengers trips reached around 8.87 million this year, up 35 percent from a year ago and 9 percent from 2019, according to data from Flight Manager. However, the number of such flights has not yet returned to the pre-pandemic level.

The flight recovery rates from China to Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Laos, and Italy have exceeded 100 percent from the respective levels in 2019. However, that to the United States is still only 29 percent.

Despite the record-high air travel during this year's Chinese New Year travel period, ticket prices saw a year-on-year drop. The average cost of an economy fare, including taxes, fell 11.3 percent to CNY874.90 (USD120.65), according to Flight Manager.

The impact of high-speed rail on the diversion of air travelers has gradually increased. Ticket prices are often lower as the peak season approaches than early bookings because some routes have not hit the high passenger load factors initially expected by airlines, so they must resort to temporary discounts to attract buyers, especially after high-speed train tickets go on sale.

Even during traditional peak seasons, including the summer and National Day holiday last year, ticket prices were lower than those in 2023, several marketing insiders from Chinese airlines told Yicai. This was mainly because many routes found that even slight price hikes led passengers to switch to high-speed trains, they noted.

Editor: Martin Kadiev