With ‘Cabbage Prices’ on Offer Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Flights Across China Currently Cost as Little as $13

(Bloomberg) — Chinese airlines are offering tickets at what are known colloquially as cabbage prices as they start restoring seat capacity following drastic capacity cuts enforced by the COVID-19 coronavirus. A one-way direct trip from Shanghai to Chengdu on Juneyao Airlines Co. this Saturday costs just 90 yuan ($13) plus 50 yuan in taxes. That’s a three-and-a-half hour journey, about the same as a flight from New York to New Orleans. Chinese carriers are adding nearly 3 million seats back into scheduled services this week, primarily for domestic routes, according to OAG Aviation Worldwide. “The dramatic capacity recovery has led to very low fares being made available,” analyst John Grant wrote in a weekly update on the market. Read more: The Coronavirus Outbreak Could Derail Xi Jinping’s Dreams of a Chinese Century China Southern Airlines Co. is adding 684,000 seats and China Eastern Airlines Corp. is increasing capacity by 566,000 seats, Grant said. China’s overall capacity is still only around half the 16.9 million seats available as of Jan. 20, when there were only hundreds of reported infections worldwide, but the recovery this week restores its rank as the second-biggest market in the world after it shrank to smaller than Portugal’s. While the picture turns more positive for China, the neighboring markets of South Korea and Hong Kong are still sharply reducing capacity, both by more than 20% this week, according to OAG. Since J...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized China COVID-19 onetime Source Type: news