A year which began with Asia-Pacifc borders only slowly reopening has ended with moves to reopen even some of the most controlled of markets through the pandemic, though operators both within and outside of Asia-Pacific continue to wait on developments in China before full recovery can be contemplated.

Markets within the region began to reopen more confidently as the year unfolded and international passenger travel began to play a role improved Asian airline results, which for much of the pandemic had been almost entirely dependent on domestic markets and in-demand cargo activities.

Towards the end of the year the environment improved further as key North Asia markets reopened in October. In December Hong Kong further eased travel restrictions for passengers arriving in the city.

However the region’s biggest market, China, has effectively been all but closed to international travel given its adherence until recently to a zero-Covid policy.

As a result IATA data shows Asia-Pacific airline capacity will still be around only half that of 2019 this year and, in its early December outlook, it projected this was likely to remain 25% down on pre-pandemic highs in 2023.

That was based on a “conservative view” of how quickly China eased travel restrictions. Beijing, having abandoned the zero-Covid policy in early December, has since taken a further major step by dropping the quarantine requirement for arriving passengers and other airline restrictions from 8 January, in what…