The sudden collapse of Spirit Airlines is serving as a stark warning for the global aviation industry, as China\u2019s own carriers just struggled through a disappointing May Day holiday marred by surging fuel costs and an embrace of the nation\u2019s high-speed rail network.<\/p>\n
Hopes that the five-day \u201cgolden week\u201d could provide a meaningful lift for airlines operating in China were dashed, as the US-Israel war with Iran, now in its third month, has caused fuel prices to nearly double.<\/p>\n
While no Chinese carrier has been pushed to the brink as Spirit was, the US budget operator\u2019s demise offers a cautionary lesson for a sector with fragile bottom lines, according to analysts.<\/p>\n
Chinese holidaymakers largely opted for land travel over flying, with the nation\u2019s railway network setting multiple records during the holiday period that commemorated China\u2019s Labour Day and officially lasted from Friday to Tuesday.<\/p>\n
During the eight-day holiday travel rush from April 29 through Wednesday, passenger trips operated by China\u2019s railways totalled 159 million \u2013 a year-on-year increase of 5.2 per cent, according to the China State Railway Group.<\/p>\n
In comparison, the Ministry of Transport said on Wednesday that China\u2019s total civil aviation passenger volume was 10.54 million from Friday to Tuesday, with a daily average of 2.108 million, representing a year-on-year decrease of 5.74 per cent.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome ultra-low-cost carriers and full-service ones in either China or America operate on razor-thin margins,\u201d warned a note from Shanghai-based aviation consultancy Airwefly on Wednesday. \u201cMany may not withstand prolonged fuel-price shocks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sudden collapse of Spirit Airlines is serving as a stark warning for the global aviation industry, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[207823,7605,79,381,207822,207827,10503,179,18,19,18929,17,207824,207825,21763,2792,204972,207826,107,40672],"class_list":{"0":"post-474189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-airwefly","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-china-state-railway-group","13":"tag-civil-aviation-administration-of-china","14":"tag-covid","15":"tag-economy","16":"tag-eire","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-iran","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-jason-zheng","21":"tag-may-day","22":"tag-ministry-of-transport","23":"tag-shanghai","24":"tag-spirit-airlines","25":"tag-spring-airlines","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-xinhua"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116537064564050871","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}