As the Chinese New Year approaches, many popular flight tickets in mainland China have seen significant price reductions, prompting some people who had already booked tickets to cancel and re-purchase them, saving a considerable amount of money.
According to a report by the “Beijing Business Daily” on January 19th, Li Xi, who lives in Beijing, planned to travel to Zhuhai with her family on January 28th. Fearing tight flight availability during the Chinese New Year period, she booked tickets in advance for her family of three, spending a total of 6280 yuan.
On January 14th, Li Xi checked the ticket prices for the same flight again and found that the adult ticket price had dropped by nearly 800 yuan. After calculating, she realized that due to the previously higher face value of the tickets, there would be no cancellation fee if she returned them. So Li Xi canceled the tickets and rebooked them for her family of three. “This time rebooking tickets for three people cost a total of 4380 yuan, averaging a savings of 633 yuan per person,” she said.
It was reported that many popular flight tickets during the Chinese New Year period have recently shown a trend of price reductions, with routes like Beijing to Sanya and others seeing decreases, with some tickets dropping by over a thousand yuan. Apart from Sanya, ticket prices for flights from Beijing to popular destinations like Chengdu have also decreased. The evening price on January 14th was 2700 yuan, dropping to 2350 yuan at noon on January 19th, a decrease of 350 yuan.
Overall, ticket prices in the three days before the Chinese New Year holiday tend to be higher, but prices have started to fall after New Year’s Eve.
In response to this, some experts in the civil aviation industry analyzed that the overall increase or decrease in ticket prices is not actually determined by the airlines’ pricing policies or subjective desires but is based on the current market supply and demand relationship. With airlines continuously increasing capacity during the Chinese New Year period, there has been an oversupply situation in the market, leading to gradual price reductions nearing the holiday. Additionally, the release of high-speed rail tickets has caused some routes to have diversified capacities, resulting in lower ticket prices.
However, a video posted online by a Chinese netizen recently showed that many high-speed rail carriages in China have plenty of empty seats with few passengers, while traditional green trains are overcrowded, forcing many to stand inside the carriages due to a lack of seats. The netizen expressed lament that people seem to be short of money.
Regarding this, a Tencent user with the username “d4bvb8h” commented: “Demand determines price, sometimes things don’t go as planned, actions speak louder than words.”
Netizen “Lily Sauce” believes: “Tickets during holidays are still too expensive, a gradual decrease in prices would be better than a one-time exorbitant charge.”
“Ding Yi” stated: “Indeed, there has been a price drop, but the cancellation fee is too expensive, not worth it to cancel and repurchase tickets.”