(Yicai Global) March 3 -- Lifting the confidence of consumers, companies and their employees alike will be all-important for China’s economic recovery, according to Wang Wu, chairman of budget carrier Spring Airlines and a member of the nation's top political advisory body whose annual meeting starts tomorrow.

Legislation is needed to standardize the market and business environment for the healthy growth of private and state-owned firms, Wang Wu will tell the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Private companies should be treated equally by institutions and the law, as well as in terms of resource distribution, he will say.

Private firms' property rights, entrepreneurs' rights, and their interests should be protected, Wang will say at the CPPCC, he told Yicai Global recently. Market entities should be equally safeguarded, ensuring that different types of companies can equally use productive factors and fairly participate in market competitions, he will propose.

According to Wang, Spring Airlines had more than 380 flights a day at the start of last month, recovering to 88 percent of the pre-pandemic level of 2019, with tickets now being priced higher and passenger load at nearly 90 percent, which strongly indicates the sector's rebound.

The Shanghai-based company is confident of a return to profit this year, Wang said.

But the utilization rate of its aircraft has yet to fully recover as Spring Airlines' foreign pilots returned to their own countries during the pandemic. Before the outbreak of Covid-19, about 25 percent of the carrier's pilots were foreign.

Even Europe and North America have a shortage, with many of Spring Airlines' ex-pilots already hired elsewhere, Wang stressed, noting that the company is figuring out how to get them back.

Editor: Martin Kadiev