Passenger traffic continued to display strong year-over-year growth across the board in December 2010. While international traffic was distinctly higher than in the previous month, there was a slight drop in domestic traffic, and regional traffic remained stable. Cargo & mail traffic and freighter tonnage carried for international and domestic routes continued to show solid year-over-year growth, with a particularly strong performance from international routes. This contrasted with regional routes, which saw a decrease compared with December 2009. On a month-over-month basis, there was steady growth across almost all markets.

Passenger capacity, measured in Available Seat Kilometers (ASK), grew 7.4% year-over-year. Passenger traffic, measured by Revenue Passenger Kilometers (RPK), rose by 10%. Capacity on international routes increased by 15.4% year-over-year, with RPK rising by 8.3%. Capacity on domestic routes increased by 1.9%, while RPK rose 11.1% in the same period. Capacity on regional routes increased by 9.5%, with RPK growing 11.6%. The passenger load factor was 77.7%, up 1.8 percentage points year-over-year. The passenger load factor for domestic and regional routes increased by 6.4 and 1.5 percentage points year-over-year but international routes, affected by bad weather in Europe and the situation on the Korean peninsula, saw a 4.9 percentage point decline in load factor. (Please note that Shenzhen Airlines and Air Macau are not included in these figures.)

Cargo capacity, measured in Available Freighter Tonne Kilometers (AFTK), rose 10.4% year-over-year in December. Revenue Freighter Tonne Kilometers (RFTK) and Freighter tonnage carried increased by 23.4% and 14.8%, respectively, compared with December 2009. The cargo load factor improved to 66.8% in December, an increase of 7 percentage points year-over-year.

As from 5 December, the company launched a Beijing-Melbourne direct flight (twice a week).

During the month, Air China purchased a total of 295,000 tonnes of jet fuel at an average price of RMB5,946 per tonne, a year-over-year increase of 12%. The average jet fuel purchase price at international airports was RMB5,584 per tonne, and the average purchase price of jet fuel for international flights at the top six Chinese airports was RMB5,749 per tonne, representing 16% and 10% year-over-year increases, respectively. The average jet fuel purchase price for domestic flights was RMB6,240 per tonne, an increase of 11% compared with December last year.

From 22 December, the domestic jet fuel price rose by RMB300 per tonne, but jet fuel surcharges for domestic routes have not been adjusted accordingly.

In December, the company made the following adjustments to jet fuel surcharges:

During the month, the company added one A321-200 and retired one A321-100 aircraft. As of end-December, Air China operated a fleet of 282 aircraft.