China travel demand fails to pick up despite reopening, AirAsia X says

Malaysia’s AirAsia X Bhd. has only been able to sell enough tickets from China to fill just half of an aircraft’s seats, a far cry from pre-pandemic days when 90% of planes were occupied on the same routes, underscoring challenges for the second-largest aviation market as it reopens to the outside world.

“Sales haven’t been off the roof,” Benyamin Ismail, chief executive officer of the long-haul budget airline, said in an interview Wednesday. “A lot of people are still uncertain about the requirements of the Chinese coming back in to China, whether you need to be quarantined. Even though they say they are open, we don’t know if you have Covid, you’d have to stay at a center or not.”