[ET Net News Agency, 16 December 2021] China Eastern Airlines Corporation Limited
(00670) said in November 2021, with the increasing number of additional confirmed cases of
novel coronavirus disease worldwide and the spreading of Omicron variant in certain
countries and regions, the pressure on China for preventing the importation of cases
continued to grow. There were multiple outbreaks in clusters in China, leading to a severe
and complex epidemic control circumstance. The company's passenger transportation capacity
(measured by available seat-kilometres) decreased by 31.47% year-on-year, among which, the
passenger transportation capacity of its domestic and international routes decreased by
31.96% and 20.51% year-on-year, respectively, while the passenger transportation capacity
of its regional routes increased by 22.75% year-on-year; passenger traffic volume
(measured by revenue passenger-kilometres) decreased by 43.64% year-on-year, among which,
the passenger traffic volume of its domestic routes decreased by 44.53% year-on-year,
while the passenger traffic volume of its international and regional routes increased by
0.89% and 87.93% year-on-year, respectively; and passenger load factor decreased by 12.59
percentage points year-on-year to 58.34%, among which, the passenger load factor of its
domestic routes decreased by 13.28 percentage points year-on-year, while the passenger
load factor of its international and regional routes increased by 10.72 and 18.10
percentage points year-on-year, respectively.
In relation to freight transportation, the freight transportation business of the
company includes passenger aircraft cargo business under conventional circumstances
(mainly passenger aircraft bellyhold space business) and passenger aircraft cargo business
under unconventional circumstances (mainly passenger-to-cargo conversion business), and
such business is under exclusive operation by China Cargo Airlines Co., Ltd. In November
2021, freight traffic volume (measured by revenue freight tonne-kilometres) increased by
17.65% year-on-year. (RC)