Scheduled flights into China during January, February and March are up just 2.9% this week compared to last week, maintaining fewer than 100 more flights each month.
Mainland residents reacted swiftly to China’s ease of restrictions, with new bookings for outbound flights surging by 255% last week when compared with the week before. The top five destinations were Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Thailand. Flight bookings to Singapore jumped 600%, while bookings to the remaining four destinations soared by 400%.
However, with China seeing a surge in Covid cases following the easing of its strict controls, and a lack of solid data being shared from Beijing - China's announcement that it was easing curbs on travel from January 8 has led to more than a dozen countries announcing Covid testing on arrivals from China.
International Air Transport Association (IATA) has urged countries not to implement “knee-jerk” travel rules for passengers from China, as the EU is set to discuss a possible joint policy on new Covid-19 restrictions.
Several EU nations, including Italy, France and Spain, have already announced new testing and other requirements for passengers arriving from China. The UK is also introducing new rules for Chinese arrivals from January 5.
But IATA director general Willie Walsh said: “It is extremely disappointing to see this knee-jerk reinstatement of measures that have proven ineffective over the last three years.
“Research undertaken around the arrival of the Omicron variant concluded that putting barriers in the way of travel made no difference to the peak spread of infections. At most, restrictions delayed that peak by a few days. If a new variant emerges in any part of the world, the same situation would be expected.”
Walsh urged governments to “listen to the advice of experts”, such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), which advise against the implementation of travel restrictions.
“We have the tools to manage Covid-19 without resorting to ineffective measures that cut off international connectivity, damage economies and destroy jobs,” added Walsh. “Governments must base their decisions on ‘science facts’ rather than ‘science politics’.”
The World Health Organisation has urged China to share more real-time information and a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry on Tuesday said that Beijing was willing to "improve communication with the world".
Elsewhere, the world’s most on-time airlines over the last twelve months have been revealed, and two Middle East carriers made the top ten. The Cirium 2022 On-Time Performance Review is well-respected in aviation, and the firm considers its yearly reviews “the global gold standard for airline and airport performance” and an on-time flight is defined as a flight that arrives within 15 minutes of the scheduled gate arrival. For an airport it is defined as departing within 15 minutes of its scheduled departure.
Azul Airlines was named as the global leader for airline on-time performance for 2022, with an on-time arrival performance of 88.93% across the 279,722 flights it operated over the last year. In second and third place were Japanese carriers ANA and Japan Airlines, followed by LATAM of South America, US carrier Delta, Colombia’s Avianca, Dubai-based Emirates, United Airlines, Qatar Airways in ninth place, and American Airlines coming in tenth.
For Qatar Airways, the carrier achieved a 78.32% on-time arrival rating across the 152,377 flights it operated over 2022, per Cirium’s data.
The company says its data is designed to provide industry stakeholders with a neutral, third-party perspective, based on the widest and deepest pool of data collected and curated from more than 600 sources of real-time flight information. It includes the airlines themselves, airports, global distribution systems, country civil aviation authorities, air navigation service providers, proprietary data partnerships and other sector stakeholders. Additionally, Cirium’s on-time performance data is backed further by an independent board of advisors. The board’s oversight “ensures accuracy and proper representation of all the information the company presents”.
When breaking down the results by region, the most on-time airline of the Middle East and Africa was Oman Air, with an on-time arrival ranking of 91.38%. Royal Jordanian airlines came in second place, followed by Kuwait Airways, Emirates, Qatar Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, Middle East Airlines, and Royal Air Maroc.
In Oman, new figures show that international flights at the Sultanate of Oman’s Airports have increased by 137.6%, to reach more than 51,000 flights until October 2022.
The number of international flights arriving and departing from the airports of Muscat, Salalah and Sohar, amounting to 51, 017 international flights, recorded a growth of 137.6% compared to 21,466 flights in the same period in 2021.
The statistics showed that the number of (international and domestic) flights arriving and departing through Muscat International Airport increased by 111.6%, to reach 54,165 flights until the end of October 2022 which carried 6,744,565 passengers, compared to 25,592 flights in 2021, which carried 2,784,037 passengers.
