International air routes are accelerating and some people have booked flights to Japan, resulting in a sudden drop of 2000 yuan! Outbound team tour destination expansion team | Shanghai | airfare

On August 10th, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism released the third batch of countries to resume outbound team tourism business, increasing the number of Chinese citizens traveling abroad to 138 countries and regions. In recent days, various tourism platforms have successively launched new destination related tourism routes, international routes have resumed and accelerated, and some flight ticket prices have loosened.

A few days ago, Ms. Song, a Shanghai citizen, checked the ticket prices for the Shanghai Tokyo route departing on January 28th and returning around February 6th on a tourism platform, and found that the round-trip ticket prices for eligible flights were as high as 7000 yuan. After the announcement of the third batch of outbound team tour countries, Ms. Song logged into the relevant platform again yesterday to check and found that the price of round-trip tickets from Shanghai to Tokyo on similar dates had dropped to 5000 yuan. She immediately locked in three tickets.

Interestingly, Ms. Song had just booked a round-trip flight between Shanghai and Tokyo when she received another promotional message from the platform, which recommended a Shanghai Christchurch flight departing at the end of January next year and returning in early February. This route requires a 7-hour layover in Auckland and a 4.5-hour layover for connecting flights, but the economy class children's ticket is priced at 4539 yuan, which is very friendly for New Zealand during the peak tourist season at that time.

In the third batch of outbound team tours released this time, Australia is among them, which means that the previously popular "Australia+New Zealand" combination on the market can be smoothly connected. In response, China Southern Airlines will resume direct flights between Guangzhou and Brisbane starting from November 17th this year.

At present, direct flights between Guangzhou and Brisbane are initially scheduled to operate 4 times a week, and it is expected to increase to 7 times a week in the next two years. After the resumption of this flight, it is expected to bring direct convenience to approximately 59000 Chinese passengers traveling to Queensland in the first year, and provide a convenient way for nearly 278000 Chinese passengers to quickly reach Queensland in the next three years.

Queensland Minister of Tourism, Innovation, and Sports, Sterling Hinchliff, stated that the resumption of flights is another successful case of the Queensland government's AUD 200 million "Attracting International Aviation Investment Fund" project and an important measure to rebuild Queensland's international visitor economy after the pandemic. Before the epidemic, China was the largest source of international tourists to Queensland. In 2019, a total of 497000 Chinese tourists visited Queensland, and the total spending of overnight tourists reached 1.61 billion Australian dollars. "We look forward to more Chinese tourists returning to Queensland to personally experience the amazing travel experience."

There have also been new developments on the highly anticipated North American routes recently. On August 10th local time, the US Department of Transportation issued a notice approving Chinese airlines to further increase direct flights between China and the United States. According to this latest announcement, starting from September 1st, Chinese airlines are allowed to operate 18 pairs of direct passenger flights between China and the United States per week, and from October 29th, it will be increased to 24 pairs per week, which is equivalent to twice the current capacity of flights between China and the United States.

Previously, four Chinese airlines, Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, and Xiamen Airlines, operated China US routes. Among them, Los Angeles had 8 direct flights to China every week, while the remaining 4 flights were direct to New York every week. At present, both Air China and China Eastern Airlines have submitted their latest direct flight plans to the US Department of Transportation.

However, even with an increase to 24 round-trip flights per week, the number of flights between China and the United States still lags significantly behind before the pandemic. Data shows that in 2019, there were over 300 direct flights between China and the United States per week, and the number of flights after October 29th was less than one tenth of that time. A large number of passengers still need to transfer between China and the United States.

On Japanese routes, after China announced the opening of team tours to Japan, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways have announced plans to increase their flights to China. Meanwhile, cruise routes from China to Japan currently maintain a high frequency of departures. Among them, the "Blue Dream Star" under the Blue Dream Cruise Line departed from Shanghai on August 11th, carrying more than 1000 passengers to destinations such as Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Kagoshima, and Nagasaki to experience the Japanese Summer Fireworks Festival locally, becoming the first cruise ship to depart from China after the opening of a team tour to Japan. At the same time, China Merchants Viking's "China Merchants Iton" also sets sail twice a month from Shanghai to Japan, becoming a new leisure vacation choice for citizens and tourists.

According to reports from Astana Airlines in Kazakhstan, starting from October 29th this year, Astana Airlines will resume round-trip flights between Almaty and Urumqi, gradually increasing from three flights per week to seven flights per week, and related flight tickets have been opened for sale.