Chinese airlines have recorded about 491,000 cancellations of tickets to Japan since Saturday after Beijing advised citizens to avoid travelling there amid a diplomatic spat, according to an aviation analyst.
The percentage of flights affected skyrocketed to 82.14% on Sunday and 75.6% on Monday, according to independent analyst Li Hanming, citing his research data covering all mainland China-based airlines.
"The flight-ticket cancellations [on Sunday] were 27 times that of new bookings, which shows safety concerns are the dominating factor for travel," he said.
On Friday, after Beijing's warning to Chinese travellers, airlines offered full refunds for flights to Japan.
China-Japan tensions had escalated over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's suggestion on Nov 7 that Tokyo could deploy its military forces in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
Li said Shanghai-Tokyo and Shanghai-Osaka area flights were most affected by the cancellations. He estimated that total losses from refunded tickets, 70% of which were round-trip, were in the billions of yuan.
Chinese carriers were affected more than Japanese airlines, as they dominate the market.
