Comments by "Yo2" (@yo2trader539) on "China’s First Airline Goes Bankrupt, Owes $14M to Staff, Discounted Plane Auctions Fail" video.

For flights between Asia and Europe, Chinese airlines are experiencing a massive competitive advantage as they can still fly over Russian airspace saving hours of fuel, which is 70% of operational cost for each flight, resulting in lower fares. There are many complicated political/diplomatic/economic reasons why Chinese airlines are still losing money while airlines in other countries have returned to profits in 2023 and 2024. (HK-based Cathay Pacific is back in profits, while the 3 mainland flag carriers are still losing money in 2024.) China used to be visa-free for both South Korean and Japanese tourists before the pandemic. And China blocked group tourism to South Korea and Japan for political/diplomatic reasons, so that destroyed a large portion of demand for their most frequent and profitable international flights. I recall seeing China Eastern using a narrow-body plane in their Shanghai-Tokyo flights, which used to be a highly profitable trunk route for both business and leisure before the pandemic. Even Philippine Airlines uses a wide-body plane between Manila and Tokyo, so that should indicate how little there is demand on Chinese international flights. Domestically, there is simply too much capacity.
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