Air travel in China faces mass cancellations after plane crash

About 74 percent of the 11,800 flights scheduled in China on Tuesday have been cancelled, according to VariFlight.

The majority of these flights were due between Beijing and Shanghai which is typically one of the world's busiest domestic routes, Bloomberg reported.

Of the 35 flights from Shanghai's Hongqiao Airport to Beijing listed for Tuesday, two operated in the morning and three more were due to fly. All others were scrapped. 

Only five of the 34 flights from Beijing to Shanghai's domestic hub were scheduled to operate.

The cancellations come after a Boeing 737-800 jet operated by China Eastern Airlines Corp. crashed near the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region while flying from Kunming in the southwestern province of Yunnan to the industrial center of Guangzhou along the east coast.

No survivors have been found as the search continued Tuesday of the scattered wreckage of the China Eastern plane carrying 132 people were strewn across mountain slopes charred by fire big enough to be seen on NASA satellite images. 

It was the first fatal air crash in China involving a commercial jetliner since 2010.

Chinese air travel had already been hit by Covid-19-related restrictions, which led to a high level of cancellations, but Tuesday's rate was still the highest this year and double the number at the start of the month, data from the Chinese aviation data company show.

Meanwhile, China Eastern shares slid as much as 7.3 percent in Hong Kong following a 6.5 percent loss on Monday. They also dropped as much as 9.3 percent in Shanghai trading Tuesday morning, the worst performers on a Bloomberg gauge of Asia-Pacific airline stocks.

Boeing fell 3.6 percent in New York on Monday.