Facts on China’s Aircraft Fleet

Mar 31, 2020 by VariFlight

1. Nationwide

Currently, over 4,000 commercial aircraft are operated in China, including passenger aircraft, freighters and business aircraft. Currently, passenger aircraft takes the largest share (96%) of China’s whole fleet, implying the huge demand and supply of the passenger traffic and the short in freighters.
Since China is a great manufacture and agricultural power where the e-business is developing remarkably as well, its demand in air cargo is undoubtedly huge. Based on the ratio the passenger aircraft to the freighters, it is convinced that most cargo demands are met by the belly hold of the passenger aircraft and foreign cargo carriers. 
However, in the situation of COVID-19, most passenger flights have been ceased in China, exposing the insufficiency in the cargo capacity. Compared with the United States, this problem is more prominent: FedEx operates 370+ freighters which is nearly doubled of that in China. According to such a situation, the State Council of China, recently, published the policy to promote air cargo development.
 


Figure 1 Ratio of Aircraft Type (by Purpose) D ata Source: CAAC, Airsavvi

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