(Yicai) Feb. 12 – All flights on 58 routes between China and Japan were canceled in the first seven days of the 40-day travel rush for the Chinese New Year holiday, with many passengers opting to go to South Korea and Southeast Asian countries instead.

The number of round-trip flights on China-Japan routes plunged 1,292 in the first week of the Lunar New Year travel rush, which began on Feb. 2, from a year earlier, according to the latest data from flight data provider DAST.

Most canceled flights were on routes from Chinese cities to Osaka, with all of the 67 flights from Beijing Daxing International Airport, the 20 from Ningbo Lishe International Airport, and the 20 from Shenyang Taoxian International Airport to Osaka's Kansai International Airport suspended. The biggest drop in flight numbers was on routes from Shanghai Pudong International Airport to Kansai and Tokyo's Narita International Airport.

The cancellation rate is especially high for flights to Kansai due to most Chinese travelers heading there as tourists, while those who travel to cities like Tokyo do so mainly for business, making them less likely to change their plans, an industry insider previously told Yicai.

Some secondary city routes launched after the Covid-19 pandemic have also been progressively axed, including Dalian-Chubu, Qingdao-Shizuoka, and Shanghai-Okayama. Flights from China to airports in Japan's Sendai, Ibaraki, Niigata, Toyama, Komatsu, Kobe, Okayama, Saga, Nagasaki, and Kagoshima have been fully canceled.

The mass flight cancellations stem from a sharp decline in passengers after more than a dozen Chinese airlines, including the three biggest state-owned carriers -- China Eastern, China Southern Airlines, and Air China -- offered refund and rescheduling options free of charge to those booked on flights to Japan between Nov. 15 and Dec. 31 after China advised its citizens to avoid traveling there amid strained relations between the two nations.

Bookings to Japan on Chinese mainland airlines plunged by 543,000 on Nov. 18 compared with Nov. 15, meaning that within three days of carriers offering free refunds and rebookings, more than half a million tickets were canceled, aviation expert Li Hanming previously said to Yicai.

According to data from the Japan National Tourism Organization, the number of Chinese visitors in the country tumbled 45 percent in December from a year earlier.

Given the situation, South Korea replaced Japan as the destination welcoming the most flights from China in the middle of December. In addition, the routes from Shanghai Pudong to Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Seoul ranked top by the number of flights in the first week of the Chinese New Year travel rush, while the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport to Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai Pudong to Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur routes each added over 20 flights.

Seoul, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur were the most popular destinations over the first 10 days of the holiday, with the number of passengers to Seoul rising 12 percent from a year ago, according to data from China Eastern. Flights from Shanghai to Seoul and Busan maintained load factors above 80 percent, with some exceeding 95 percent.

In addition, Thailand is poised to replace Japan as the most desired outbound destination for Chinese travelers over the Lunar New Year holiday based on booking data from multiple travel platforms.

Editor: Martin Kadiev