(Yicai) June 12 -- The number of air passengers in China rose over the three-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, while ticket prices fell in the period.

Air trips exceeded 5.5 million during the holiday ended on June 10, up 7.9 percent from the same period last year and 7.5 percent from that in 2019, according to data released by the Ministry of Transport yesterday.

However, the average price for economy class tickets for domestic flights was CNY580 (USD80), down 25 percent from a year earlier and 10 percent from the same period in 2019, according to flight tracker Flight Master.

More than 42,400 flights were operated in China’s civil aviation industry during the holiday, down 0.7 percent from the same period last year but up 0.9 percent from the same period in 2019, Flight Master data also showed.

Due to the shortness of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, airlines predicted that most tourists would choose to visit neighboring regions, so they adopted relatively prudent strategies in terms of capacity, which resulted in lower ticket prices.

International airfares also plunged around 20 percent from a year earlier, according to data from Chinese online travel agency Qunar.

The Dragon Boat Festival has never been a peak season for international tourism, Qunar said, noting that on top of that, the holiday overlapped with China’s National College Entrance Examination this year. Moreover, the carrying capacity of international air routes greatly improved this year compared to last year, contributing to the decline in international airfares.

The number of round-trip flights between China and Japan ranked first during the holiday, recovering to nearly 75 percent of the level in 2019, according to Flight Master. Round-trip flights between China and the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates exceeded the pre-pandemic level.

Over 637.6 million inter-regional passenger trips were made in China during the holiday, up 9.4 percent from a year earlier and 17 percent from the same period in 2019, according to the MOT.

Editor: Futura Costaglione