China sees nosedive in passenger trips during Spring Festival holiday

BEIJING - The number of passenger trips took a nosedive during China's seven-day Spring Festival holiday, official data showed on Thursday.

From Feb 11 to Feb 17, a total of 98.42 million passenger trips were made, plunging by 76.8 percent compared with that during the Spring Festival holiday in 2019, according to the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19.

The figure was also 34.8 percent less than the number in the 2020 Spring Festival holiday, official data showed.

The flow of highway traffic amounted to 219.65 million vehicles, down by 20.27 percent during the same holiday in 2019, but up by 118.26 percent compared with that in the 2020 Spring Festival holiday.

China is expected to see 21.44 million passenger trips implemented Thursday, with the railway sector operating 6.7 million trips and the civil aviation sector 960,000 trips.