Economic reporter for the 21st century, kojiang
In front of the on-board counter at white cloud airport in guangzhou, several young passengers are excited to compare the cost of the ticket to the start-up plane, “just over 400 to shanghai and cheaper than high iron”. Guangzhou's white cloud airport workers, ro, also drink in their friends' circles: "a ticket to nanjing, guangzhou, wenzhou, ningbo and so on is only $200 now."
New year's eve has just passed, and the domestic air ticket market has witnessed a dramatic shift — a rapid fall in the cost of round-trip air fares between major cities and a one-to-two-cent discount on multiple hot-line routes。
According to the third-party ticket platform, the lowest fare from guangzhou to shanghai is $210, equivalent to a discount of 1. 1. Chongqing to ningbo's fare is only $199, less than a tenth. Where did analysts point out that the post-new year price downturn created a rare “fault trip” for conditional travellers。
The first week after the new year's holiday, the airline ticket market received price adjustments in the form of “high-season dive”. Economics in the twenty-first century found that fare prices were as low as 10 per cent in january when searching for a platform for simultaneous travel。
From guangzhou, for example, the fare from january 14th to wenzhou is only $200, with a discount of 1. 5, and the fare of nanjing, wenzhou, ningbo, wuhan and hangzhou is equally two hundred, with a discount of between one and twenty。
The minimum fare for the flight to shenyang was only $200 (0. 9 per cent), for the flight to xiamen, winzhou and dalian it was only $200 (1. 3 per cent) and for the flight to changchun it was only 0. 9 per cent, or $206。
Chongqing's flight cost was even more striking: $199 to ningbo (0. 9 discount), $200 to shenyang (0. 9 discount), $200 to lanzhou (1. 3 discount), and only $206 to hang shenzhen and $220 to hangzhou, equivalent to only 1. 1 discounts on the nominal fare。
The cost of the flight from beijing is slightly higher, but there are also large numbers of far-flung tickets, such as those for beijing's saddle mountain, changji, dalian, lu liang, for a mere $210, for finginbo 243, for fai lanzhou 285 and for fei hangzhou 290. The discount rate was also below 1. 3。
The “jumping” of airline fares was accompanied by a new downward revision of domestic fuel surcharges, bringing double benefits to passengers。
Since 5 january, new fuel surcharge rates have been formally implemented for a number of airlines, such as national, east, south and sea, as follows: 800 kilometres and the following, each passenger is charged $10; and over 800 kilometres, each passenger is charged $20. The rates for the two phases were reduced by $10 and $20, respectively, compared to the previous period. For a family of three, this adjustment means that a trip would save hundreds of dollars。
Why are there so many low-priced tickets in january? Industry has explained that this is closely related to post-mortem phase reduction. "the new year's holiday has just ended and the winter holiday has not been opened, so the winter tourism market is expected to have a one-month or so wrong window trip."
In order to maintain the aircraft utilization rate, the airline will maintain its capacity to deliver during the winter vacation that will take place at universities at the end of january and the longest spring holiday in history in mid-february. Relatively adequate supplies and a temporary fall in demand have collectively led to lower air fare prices for some routes。
Notably, the civil aviation market performed well in practice during new year's day 2026. According to the ministry of transport and communications, the total number of civil aviation passengers on new year's holidays was 5. 88 million, an average of 1. 96 million daily, an increase of 10. 4 per cent over the previous year. Dast traffic statistics also show that during new year's day there were approximately 42,000 passenger flights, an increase of 1. 8 per cent over the same period, of which domestic flights increased by 2 per cent. The number of 12 flights in top20 division increased by 16. 5 per cent, 14. 4 per cent and 11. 7 per cent, respectively, from spring and autumn aviation, tibet aviation and combined aviation. The number of incoming and outgoing flights to and from 23 airports in millions of airports increased by 21. 8 per cent, 19. 3 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively, from sunyang province airport, nan ning wuxi airport and ishijia jung airport. At the same time, 28 of the top 50 round-trip routes across the country increased over the same period in 2025. According to the huatai securities study, the rate of increase during new year's day was higher than in mid-autumn 2020, when it increased by 3. 4 per cent。
Studies of commercial and commercial securities both indicate that the aviation industry will enter a new stage of development in 2026. It is forecast that 2025 may be the first year of loss for large airlines, while 2026 is expected to be the first year of the release of profitability。
A multi-tender analysis suggests that the supply and demand relationship in the aviation industry is expected to improve steadily in 2026, contributing to the level of returns and repair of profitability in the industry. It is worth mentioning that such low fares will be difficult to repeat in the future with the civil aviation authority's anti-inventory initiative。
