What a difference two weeks makes. On 12th February China’s airports handled just 162 thousand passengers, a decrease of 90% points on the level achieved in 2019 and a direct result of the deliberate policy of travel suppression by the Chinese authorities.
Fast forward a couple of weeks to 27th February and that number has soared to 1.4 million people. With the brakes off again China’s domestic air travel market is rising at a stellar pace, both generally and, importantly for Travel Retail, to Hainan Island.