Losses widen at China’s “Big Three” in first quarter 2025

April 1st 2025

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Among China’s three largest state-owned carriers, Beijing headquartered Air China recorded the largest loss for first quarter 2025 at 2 billion yuan (US$281 million) from 1.7 billion yuan in the same months last year. Read More » Revenue was flat at 40 billion yuan the flag carrier reported. It said operating costs increased by 1.9% to 44 billion yuan and net cash flow from operating activities declined 11.3% to 8.3 billion yuan for the reported period.

China Eastern Airlines (CEA) delivered a much better performance than its northern rival but was still in the red for the quarter with losses of 995 billion yuan (US$137 million) against an 803 million yuan loss a year earlier.

At China Southern Airlines (CSA) losses for the quarter were the smallest of the “Big Three” at 747 million yuan (US$103 million), but it was not a good news story for the Guangzhou-based carrier. In first quarter 2024, CSA recorded a net profit of 756 million yuan, 1.5 billion yuan better than the first three months of this year.

Why? CSA attributed its financial performance to “shifts in traveler demographics, competitive pressures from the country’s high speed rail network, global supply chain constraints and the depreciation of the yuan against the US$. It was much the same story at Air China and CEA. And so far the outlook for the current quarter is not looking any better as trans-Pacific traffic flat lines as the China-U.S. trade war drags on.