Air China reported a net loss of $443 million (2.93 billion yuan) for the Q1 ending March 31, 2023. The airline made a basic loss of 0.19 yuan per share during the quarter, according to a Wednesday filing while the revenue rose by 94.06% to $3.6 billion (25.07 billion yuan).
The airline had reported a loss of 8.9-billion-yuan same time last year. The Q1 of 2023 loss reported by the airline is more than 67 % from a year earlier while the revenue almost doubled.
Most of Air China’s revenue came from international routes making it the most badly affected airline during the pandemic. Air China had the highest losses among all Chinese airlines in the last three years.
Since the beginning of the year, air travel has seen a rapid recovery thanks to changes to Covid-19 prevention policies, but the slower-than-expected rebound in international routes directly affected Air China’s performance. "However, we caution that international travel will still take some time to fully recover to pre-pandemic levels due to bottlenecks, including bilateral negotiations on air rights between China and other countries, visa policies, and limited ground handling ability at foreign airports," HSBC reports.
Domestic air traffic is recovering as fares are higher than in 2019, Air China said, adding that its domestic revenue has almost recovered to the pre-pandemic level.
But the number of overseas flights in the Q1 was just 15% of the same period in 2019, the airline added. The airline is expecting this number to go up by 70% by the end of the year.
Between April 10 and 16, the number of international passenger flights operated by Chinese carriers resumed to 29.4 percent of the pre-pandemic level, with the figure increasing five-fold from the week ended Jan. 8, before China relaxed its Covid-19 policies, according to data from the Civil Aviation Administration.
Meanwhile, as per HSBC data In March 2023, domestic passenger capacity of the Big 3 mainland Chinese airlines in terms of ASK grew to 120% of the 2019 level versus 109% in February and domestic pax traffic in terms of RPK grew to 104% of the 2019 level versus 95% in February.