Jiangsu’s civil aviation sector handled over 39.22 million passenger trips in 2020, which accounted for 70% of that in 2019, and 671,000 tons of cargo and mail, a year-on-year growth of 4.6%.

Across East China, Jiangsu showed a stronger recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic fallout, 5.8 percentage points higher than the regional average growth, and ranked both third in terms of passenger trips and freight volume.

After entering the winter aviation season, the province’s domestic flights and passenger trips went up 14.1% and 3.8% year on year respectively. The Yangzhou-Taizhou, Yancheng Nanyang and Sunan Shuofang international airports all reported the recovery to nearly 90% of the volume registered in the same period in 2019, about 70-80% for airports of Nanjing Lukou, Nantong Xingdong and Xuzhou Guanyin.

International passenger flights are still at a standstill due to the global spread of the pandemic.

(Photo by Mei Jianfei)

In last year, Jiangsu’s civil aviation sector handled domestic cargo and mail of 582,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 6.0%. The volume of international cargo and mail also climbed by 16.5% year on year to reach 81,000 tons.

Since March 2020, Jiangsu has opened 98 cargo flights to 51 countries, 30 new countries more than in 2019. The province reported 3,539 international flights, about 82 per week, and it also added and resumed 13 all-cargo routes in total.