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Ralph Jennings

Weak demand linked to choke points in the Chinese economy has prompted airlines to plan cuts in their China-Philippine flights for the final three months of the year, according to analysts.
And they say geopolitical friction between the two Asian countries is also playing a role in deterring travel that would help airlines prosper.
AirAsia Philippines, China Southern Airlines and Qingdao Airlines have all indicated intentions to halt some of their flights in the fourth quarter, according to the industry data platform OAG Aviation.
Philippine-based Cebu Pacific’s president, Alexander Lao, said separately last month that his airline would not restore Beijing flights because air travel had fallen short of pre-pandemic demand, the media outlet Philstar Global reported. The airline had a Manila-Beijing route in 2019.
And OAG data indicates that AirAsia Philippines, an affiliate of Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia, will discontinue its Manila-Shenzhen flights from October, as well as the Beijing connection.
It doesn’t make any sense now to do tourism in the Philippines
Andy Xie, Shanghai-based economist
China’s economic growth is slowing due to a property market crisis, hesitant consumption and, as of August, a softening of industrial activity.
Travel outside mainland China last year reached just 60 per cent of its 2019 levels, with more than two-thirds of those trips to nearby Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Andy Xie, an independent economist in Shanghai, said: “With the airline business there’s a cost issue – there’s a preference for domestic tourism in China. The cost of flying is quite high.”
The anticipated flight cutbacks also come as China and the Philippines struggle through a maritime sovereignty dispute. The dispute has chilled two-way travel, said OAG Asia head Mayur Patel.
And Xie noted that perceptions of personal safety risks abroad, including in the Philippines, further deter Chinese travellers. “It doesn’t make any sense now to do tourism in the Philippines,” he said.
Guangzhou-headquartered China Southern will stop its two weekly Manila-Nanning flights from October, Patel said, while China-based Qingdao Airlines will cut flights from Chengdu to Tagbilaran, a city on the Philippine tourism-intensive island of Bohol. The Bohol flights were added just this quarter.
It makes no sense for AirAsia to serve China from the Philippines at this point
Brendan Sobie, Sobie Aviation
Philippine media outlet GMA News Online quoted AirAsia Philippines CEO Ricardo Isla as saying that China’s 30 per cent share of its traffic in 2019 had fallen to just 2 per cent this year.
AirAsia from Malaysia still operates a long list of routes between China and other countries in the region.
“AirAsia as a group continues to add flights to China and has been one of the strongest foreign airline groups in China in terms of their post-pandemic recovery and size of operations,” said Brendan Sobie, founder of the Singapore-based consulting firm Sobie Aviation.
“But it makes no sense for AirAsia to serve China from the Philippines at this point, given the current China-Philippines environment.”
AirAsia, China Southern and Cebu Pacific did not immediately answer inquiries for this report.
But Xiamen Airlines, a Chinese carrier with a Xiamen-Manila route, said in a reply to the Post on Monday that it had “no way to forecast the long-term allocation or movement of flights”.


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An expected reduction in routes between China and the Philippines comes as post-pandemic demand has not taken off, while their maritime dispute has also chilled travel


An expected reduction in routes between China and the Philippines comes as post-pandemic demand has not taken off, while their maritime dispute has also chilled travel.
