China Eastern Airlines (CEA) has reported rising passenger demand as the Chinese New Year approaches, with many of its routes recording high passenger load factors.

Based on the airline's statistics, the top five international and regional destinations during this period are Seoul, Bangkok, Hong Kong (China), Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Among them, traffic to Seoul showed the strongest growth, increasing 11.7 percent year on year.

On domestic routes operated by CEA, Shanghai, Beijing, Kunming, Xi'an and Chengdu ranked as the most popular destinations. Passenger numbers to Shanghai and Chengdu rose by 7.5 percent and 11.4 percent respectively compared with the same period last year.

During the first 10 days of the Chinese New Year travel rush, passenger load factors on several international routes from Shanghai remained above 80 percent. These included flights to European cities such as Paris, London and Madrid, to Southeast Asian destinations such as Chiang Mai, Phuket and Bali, and to South Korean cities including Seoul and Busan. On certain dates, seat occupancy rate on some of these flights exceeded 95 percent.

International routes departing from Beijing and Guangzhou also recorded similarly high passenger load factors during the same period.

Domestic travel saw strong demand both for warmer southern cities and for northern winter tourism destinations. Southbound routes to Kunming, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Sanya and Haikou remained popular, while northbound ones to Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang, Changbai Mountain and Altay also attracted significant passenger flows.