Air travel has soared in the past decade, despite global economic turbulence, and there's still plenty of room for growth, particularly in China and the other emerging Asian powerhouses.
From 2005 to 2015, air travel grew more than in any 10-year period since 1975 to 1985, according to the International Air Transport Association, a trade body for the world's airlines.
China's international air travel market will grow by 15% per year over the next five years, said Dong Zhiyi, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) at the 22nd World Routes Development Forum in Chengdu on September 25.
He noted Chinese civil aviation industry has grown by double-digits over the past 30 years. In 2015, China's air traffic increased 13.8% year on year to 85.17 billion tonne-kilometers and accounted for 21.3% of the global total.
Also in 2015, China's international passenger traffic and new international routes increased by at least 30%, marking a record high. Mr. Dong added robust travel demands will provide more opportunities for global airlines to open up the Chinese market.
As of the end of 2015, China had bilateral agreements with 118 countries. 20 Chinese airlines operated to 138 foreign cities across 53 countries while 129 foreign airlines operated from 126 foreign cities to 57 cities in China.
Chengdu municipal government and six airlines signed cooperation agreement to open nine new nonstop international routes on the opening day of business at World Routes 2016.
The new routes include three additional long-haul connections from locally-based Sichuan Airlines which is adding to its recently launched flights between Chengdu and Vancouver with up to three times weekly links to Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Moscow, Russia; and Auckland, New Zealand this winter.
Ethiopian Airlines will begin four-times flights between Addis Ababa and Chengdu next summer.
New routes also include Hainan Airlines' new link from Chengdu to Los Angeles and plans for a New York service.
Capital Airlines will also serve Madrid twice-weekly from mid-November, while Tibet Airlines will begin flights to Sochi next year.
