Just $13 to fly across China as airlines struggle to fill seats

Bloomberg

Chinese airlines are offering tickets at what are known colloquially as cabbage prices as they start restoring seat capacity following drastic capacity cuts enforced by the coronavirus.
A one-way direct trip from Shanghai to Chengdu on Juneyao Airlines Co this Saturday costs just 90 yuan ($13) plus 50 yuan in taxes. That’s a three-and-a-half hour journey, about the same as a flight from New York to New Orleans.
Chinese carriers are adding nearly 3 million seats back into scheduled services this week, primarily for domestic routes, according to OAG Aviation Worldwide. “The dramatic capacity recovery has led to very low fares being made available,” analyst John Grant wrote in a update on the market.
China Southern Airlines Co is adding 684,000 seats and China Eastern Airlines Corp is increasing capacity by 566,000 seats, Grant said.
China’s overall capacity is still only around half the 16.9 million seats available as of January 20, when there were only hundreds of reported infections worldwide, but the recovery this week restores its rank as the second-biggest market in the world after it shrank to smaller than Portugal’s.
Online news portal Sina.com said Chinese airlines posted losses of more than 10 billion yuan in February as revenue fell 37 billion yuan, citing industry estimates.
Its report also flagged the availability of tickets at “cabbage prices” as grounded flights get restored.