Skift Take
For a faster recovery of the China outbound market, Trip.com executives say the aviation sector will have to ramp up flight capacity from the current 15-20 percent of pre-Covid level.
While airlines not running international flights at the pre-pandemic level could be a short-term bottleneck, Chinese online travel agency Trip.com Group believes the country's outbound travel will start to pick up in the second quarter when flight capacity gradually recovers.
With outbound flight capacity currently at only 15-20 percent of pre-Covid level, Jie Sun, CEO and Director of Trip.com Group hoped that the aviation industry would set in motion plans to restore flight capacity to help outbound travel pick up pace in the coming quarters.
As domestic business in China remained resilient and international business continued to show strong recovery momentum, Trip.com Group announced that its overall air ticketing and revenue from global platforms for the fourth quarter have fully recovered to pre-pandemic level.
Since the announcement of China's reopening, the group noted that domestic hotel bookings and air booking have already passed the 2019 level.
The year 2022 marks an end to the three years of tops