Domestic air travel demand recovering

China's air travel demand recovered significantly last month, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said on Tuesday.

Civil carriers handled about 45.54 million passenger trips last month, nearly three quarters of the figure in August last year, Zhang Qing, deputy director of the administration's development planning department, told a news conference. In February, it was less than a fifth of the figure in February last year.

"The domestic air market, in particular, has seen accelerated recovery," she said. "Over 45.35 million domestic passenger trips were made last month, recovering to more than 80 percent of the level during the same period last year."

It was the highest monthly domestic passenger transport volume this year, she said.

Zhang also noted that as COVID-19 is continuing to spread globally, international passenger flights are still at a low level, transporting some 189,000 passengers in August, or an average of 6,000 passengers a day — a year-on-year fall of 97.3 percent.

Air cargo volume recovered to 546,000 metric tons, 86.7 percent of the level in August last year. Of that, 220,000 tons were carried by all-cargo aircraft, up 20.1 percent year-on-year, she said.