Air China Group - statistics & facts

Founded in 1988 with the corporate logo of a phoenix, Air China is the only national flag carrier in China. Since 2002, Air China has been part of China National Holding Corporation Limited, a state-owned air transport holding group. Headquartered in Beijing, Air China Limited was established in 2004 and later listed in the stock exchanges of Hong Kong, London, and Shanghai. As of 2022, the total assets of the Chinese flag carrier amounted to almost 295 billion yuan.

Air China aims to become the world's leading airline, and in 2023, it was ranked as the eighth most valuable airline brand in the world, with a brand value of 2.6 billion U. S. dollars. Additionally, it is the most valuable brand in the domestic aviation industry, ahead of its main competitors, such as China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, and Hainan Airlines. As of 2022, the Group had a total fleet of 762 passenger aircraft in service, carrying the passengers to 1,300 destinations worldwide.

Revenue impacted by COVID-19

As with most international passenger airlines, Air China’s performance between 2020 and 2022 was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis resulted in a 50 percent reduction in operating revenues in 2020. Nevertheless, Air China was ranked as the tenth most productive airline group in the world based on revenue and the second in China that year. To mitigate the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its operations, the Group adopted an innovative model to transform passenger aircraft into freight operations. This helped the Group increase its air cargo and mail revenue by 50 percent over the previous year to nearly 8.6 billion yuan in 2020 and 10.09 billion yuan in 2022. However, despite this growth, the Group recorded a net profit loss of 35.44 billion yuan in 2022.

Domestic routes are the key market

Mainland China is Air China's primary market, where it produced nearly 73 percent of the group’s total operating revenues in 2022. As major competitors on domestic routes, China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines carried 62.64 million and 42.51 million passengers in 2022, respectively. Although Air China does not have the highest passenger traffic in China, the airline is the most used carrier in the country, according to the latest branding report.
This text provides general information. Statista assumes no liability for the information given being complete or correct. Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date data than referenced in the text.
Published by Wenyi Zhang, Feb 28, 2024

Key insights

Air China's revenue
52.9bn CNY
Passengers carried by Air China
38.61m
Number of Air China's employees
87.19k
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