During spring break combined with the Qingming holiday, air travel volume and prices both increased, with international flight ticket prices rising by 20%.

Multiple cities experience their first spring holiday, and combined with the Qingming Festival holiday, the first “Spring Golden Week” of 2026 comes to a lively close.

This year, during the Qingming holiday, several provinces including Sichuan, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang introduced “Spring Break” policies, aligning with the statutory Qingming holiday to create a 6-day mini-vacation. This holiday arrangement breaks the traditional pattern of a 3-day Qingming holiday, providing travelers with a longer time window for travel and bringing new growth opportunities to the civil aviation market.

On April 7, data from the third-party travel platform “Qunar Travel” showed that the Qingming holiday coinciding with spring break was unexpectedly busy, with people’s travel radius significantly expanding. Notably, travelers with a travel radius over 800 kilometers increased by more than 30%, and many took advantage of the springtime off-peak long-distance trips. Several popular flight routes saw ticket sales increase by over 40% year-over-year.

The data also indicated that from April 1 to 6, there was a significant increase in air travelers departing from popular cities. In terms of growth rate, the spring holiday had a very noticeable effect on local outbound tourism. Among the top 20 cities with the fastest growth in outbound flight tickets, more than half were cities offering spring break. For example, flights departing from Panzhihua increased by over 120%, Huangshan by 80%, and Xichang by 72%. Additionally, the “child-included” travel surged, with a 70% increase in passengers aged 13 to 18 on flights.

Overall, on April 7, according to data from the Civil Aviation Travel Platform Feiji Changzhuan, during the combined period of spring break and Qingming holiday (April 1-6), the actual number of domestic passenger flights was about 75k, a 1% increase year-over-year. Specifically, during the Qingming holiday (April 4-6), the actual number of passenger flights was 36k, a slight increase of 0.3%. International and regional flights saw 13k flights, up 2% year-over-year, with the Qingming period (April 4-6) accounting for 6,674 flights, a 0.07% increase.

On April 7, according to CCTV News, from April 4 to 6, the total cross-regional population movement was 75k person-times, averaging 36k per day, a 5.6% increase compared to the same period in 2025. Civil aviation passenger volume reached 13k, averaging 1.896 million per day, up 1.6%.

Data from the Civil Aviation Flight Management Platform indicated that this year’s increase during the Qingming holiday was lower than that during spring break. During the combined period (April 1-6), civil aviation passenger transport volume reached 12.09 million (domestic flights only), a 5.3% increase year-over-year. Daily trends showed that the first three days had significantly higher travel volumes than the same period in previous years, with the first day increasing by 13.7%. On Qingming Day, travel slightly declined year-over-year, but the overall holiday travel was better than the same period in previous years due to the spring break effect.

Regarding ticket prices, data from Feiji Changzhuan showed that the average one-way ticket price (including taxes) for domestic flights during the spring break and Qingming period was around 810 yuan, a 12% increase year-over-year. For international and regional flights, the average one-way ticket price was about 1,670 yuan, up 20%.

Flight management platform data indicated that during the spring break and Qingming holiday (April 1-6), the average price of economy class tickets for domestic flights was 775 yuan, a 13.9% increase, and 5.2% higher than in 2019. Looking at the two periods, ticket prices in 2026 are higher than in previous years, especially compared to 2019. The price gap narrowed from 43.3 yuan in 2019 to 17.7 yuan in 2026. The spring break effectively boosted the low season during Qingming. The last three days saw a 7.2% increase compared to 2019, higher than the 3.4% increase in the first three days. Travelers departing during the spring break mainly returned during Qingming, creating strong support for return flight prices.

Source: Flight Management Platform

Outbound and inbound tourism are also booming. Data from Qunar Travel shows that for outbound travel, the 3-4 hour flight zone remains the top choice, with tickets to South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia ranking in the top three, with tickets to Korea increasing by over 40% year-over-year. Inbound tourism peaked due to the dual demand of returning home for ancestral rites and spring outings, with Malaysia, Canada, and Uzbekistan becoming major sources. Qunar Travel data shows that travelers from Bangladesh, Brazil, and Turkey increased more than sixfold, while arrivals from Azerbaijan and Spain increased fivefold.

The Flight Management Platform report shows that during the spring break and Qingming holiday, flights to Southeast Asia accounted for the highest proportion of international departures at 45.1%. Flights to East Asia decreased to 27.8%, down 23.3% year-over-year, and flights to West Asia decreased by 36.7%, due to attacks on Iran by the US and Israel. Growth in international departures was concentrated in Southeast Asia and Europe. Among popular outbound destinations, South Korea remained the top, while flights to Japan dropped sharply, down over 50% year-over-year. Flights to Cambodia decreased by 10.3%, with increases in flights to South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Russia, and Kazakhstan.