Since this year, the passenger throughput of Capital Airport has continued to grow. As of May 19, it had reached 2.55 million passengers, with an average daily passenger volume of 179,000 passengers, with a daily passenger throughput of 1992 million passengers, with an average of 142,000 passengers per day; international and regional passenger throughput exceeded 1 million for 4 consecutive months, and surpassed 5 million passengers on May 16, an average of 37,000 passengers per day. The number of international and regional passengers increased by more than 300% over the same period last year. In April, the number of international and regional passengers at Capital Airport reached 1.19 million, with an average of nearly 40,000 passengers per day.

Additionally, Hong Kong Cathay Pacific announced that it carried 1.741,600 passengers in April 2024, an increase of 26.1% over the same month of 2023. The number of passenger kilometers earned during the month increased by 27.8% year-on-year. The passenger load rate fell 5.4 percentage points to 81.6%, while the number of available seat kilometers increased by 36.2% year-on-year.

According to the Civil Aviation Administration's report at the May press conference, in April 2024, the entire industry completed passenger traffic of 559.50 million passengers, an increase of 10.6% over the previous year. Among them, the scale of domestic passenger traffic increased by 8.1% compared to the same period in 2019, and the scale of international passenger traffic exceeded 5 million passengers. The Civil Aviation Administration said it will continue to increase international passenger flights as a priority task and make every effort to further resume international passenger flights.

The Cathay Pacific Junan Research Report points out that aviation is currently at a short-term low point after the May 1st holiday, domestic passenger flow is still growing steadily, while ticket prices have dropped significantly. With the gradual resumption of business travel, the market experienced a double increase in volume and price last week as scheduled. Passenger traffic in China increased by nearly 10% compared to 2019, and domestic ticket prices rebounded by more than 10%.

Observing that ticketing volume has continued to rise steadily recently, it is expected that the subsequent market will continue to show resilience in demand.

The low peak season in the aviation market in 2024 is obvious and will continue. Demand is strong during the peak season, and the profit center rises; demand in the off-season is resilient but supply and demand are still under pressure, and steady international increases will continue to drive the recovery of supply and demand during the off-season.

Zhongtai Securities pointed out that in the medium to long term, the industry's recovery trend is positive. As international routes continue to recover, the supply and demand pattern of the entire industry is expected to continue to improve, and the aircraft utilization rate of various airlines is expected to continue to rise, compounded by favorable ticket price market-based reforms. The performance of airlines is expected to continue to improve. It is recommended to focus on low-level layout opportunities. Furthermore, airports will benefit from a recovery in aviation demand, and aviation revenue and African aviation revenue will improve markedly.

Companies related to the aviation sector:

Air China (00753), China Eastern Airlines (00670), China Southern Airlines (01055), Capital Airport (00694)