China Eastern Airlines is gearing up for the 2025 Spring Festival travel rush, with over 90 million passenger journeys expected by air alone during the extended 40-day travel rush.

"We're anticipating an early travel peak, rapid traffic growth, and booming demand for winter sports and outbound tourism," said Hu Shijie, deputy general manager of Hongqiao passenger service center, ground service department of China Eastern Airlines. "The convergence of holiday travelers visiting family, migrant worker movements, student vacations and leisure trips will see passenger volumes surge."

To meet the seasonal rush, China Eastern plans an uplift of over 9,000 flights compared to normal schedules. The carrier will deploy 804 aircraft including 10 C919 aircraft, operating 124,000 total flights with nearly 21 million seats during the travel rush — respective increases of 4.18 percent and 4.76 percent year-over-year.

Major hubs such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou of Guangdong province and Chengdu of Sichuan province are seeing increased flight frequencies to second- and third-tier cities to facilitate travel for family reunions and vacations. New domestic routes have also launched, such as Shanghai to winter destinations such as Changbaishan in Jilin and Daqing in Heilongjiang.

On international routes, China Eastern resumed 103.8 percent of its 2019 passenger flights during the holiday rush. As the extended 8-day holidays allow travelers to take longer vacations through combined leave, demand for taking longer vacations and going overseas increases, said Hu.

Bookings for Australia, South Korea and Japan routes are booming. And new international routes added for the period include Shanghai Pudong Airport to Iwate Hanamaki Airport in Japan, Beijing Daxing Airport to Phu Quoc Island in Vietnam, and Shanghai to Marseille in France and Casablanca in Morocco. Frequencies have also increased from multiple Chinese cities to popular destinations including Okinawa and Toyama in Japan  and Sydney in Australia.

With the 9th Asian Winter Games Harbin 2025 taking place in Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, winter sports destinations are seeing particularly high demand this season, according to Hu.

To cater to the soaring appetite for ice and snow travel, China Eastern is launching new routes and increasing frequencies to winter sports hubs. The airline also operates over 1,200 additional flights linking the host city of the Games to domestic destinations as well as international routes.

It is also offering free baggage allowances for ski and winter sports equipment on domestic flights to Harbin and Changchun.

At airports, staffing levels have been optimized and self-service check-in booths and baggage drops promoted to enhance efficiency amid the surge in travel volumes. Special attention is being paid to serving unaccompanied minors, senior citizens and passengers requiring assistance through dedicated service counters.

"From a service assurance perspective, we are particularly focused on facilitating special needs travelers like unaccompanied minors, elderly passengers and those requiring wheelchair assistance," said Hu. "Our service counters provide an end-to-end experience from booking through boarding for these groups during the travel rush."