Air China achieved a promising increase of domestic passenger transport in May, but no improvement in freight transport

Air China achieved double-digit growth for the passenger transport and traffic in the domestic and regional market in May compared to that over the same period of the previous year, but suffered a large tumble in its international routes due to influenza A(H1N1). Since there is no obvious sign of the world’s economic recovery, its freight business does not see any improvement in the whole demands, either.
As indicated in the operation data published by Air China on June 16th, the company gained a 7% increase in its passenger transport in May. Compared to the same period of the previous year, the passenger transport in international routes had reduced by 9.5%, while that in domestic routes increased by 20.1%. Meanwhile, the passenger transport in regional routes had increased by 13.4%, but its average seat utilization was 71.2%, 0.1% lower than that over the same period of the previous year. Furthermore, the company plans to achieve in 2009 the transport flight of 854,000 hours, the total transport of 10.15 billion ton-kilometers, the passenger transport of 40.11 million persons and the freight transport of 1,010,000 tons, increased by 8.5%, 8.1%, 17.1% and 12.4% respectively compared to that over the same period of the previous year, the (passenger) aircraft daily utilization of 9.9 hours, the seat utilization of 76.2%, the load ratio of 68.3% and the freight load ratio of 57.5%.