The three major airlines conclude their 2025 financial reports: China Southern Airlines turns a profit first, with international markets boosting revenue

The three major airlines' path to reducing losses welcomes its first finisher. On the night of March 30, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines successively released their 2025 annual reports, and the three major airlines have submitted their report cards. China Southern Airlines achieved a turnaround with a net profit of 857 million yuan for the year, while China Eastern Airlines and Air China, although unable to achieve an annual turnaround, showed significant improvement in performance. In 2025, all three major airlines increased efforts to expand into international markets, with key indicators such as capacity input, passenger turnover, and load factor showing significant year-on-year growth. Among them, China Southern Airlines' passenger gross profit margin increased by 2.37 percentage points year-on-year. In 2026, the three major airlines did not stop exploring international markets, successively opening multiple key routes in the summer and autumn flight seasons. At the same time, the three major airlines also stated in their financial reports that they would focus on enhancing market operational capabilities, optimizing capacity allocation, improving aircraft utilization rates, and upgrading and optimizing service standard systems.

China Southern Airlines profits 857 million yuan

In 2025, the operating revenues of the three major airlines all increased. Air China's operating revenue increased by 2.87% year-on-year, China Eastern Airlines' operating revenue increased by 5.92% year-on-year, and China Southern Airlines' operating revenue increased by 4.61% year-on-year.

Among them, China Southern Airlines achieved a full-year turnaround with a net profit of 857 million yuan, marking its first annual profit since 2020. China Eastern Airlines reduced its losses by 2.593 billion yuan, with a full-year loss of 1.633 billion yuan, but the total profit turned around year-on-year to 274 million yuan. Air China reported a full-year loss of 1.77 billion yuan.

Beijing Business Journal's analysis of the financial report data found that in 2025, the main business income of the three major airlines significantly improved. Air China's financial report shows that the group's main business (air passenger transport, cargo, and mail transport) revenue was 169.064 billion yuan, an increase of 2.73% year-on-year; China Eastern Airlines' air transport business revenue was 137.114 billion yuan, an increase of 6.08% year-on-year; and China Southern Airlines' main business (air passenger transport and related services, cargo, mail transport) revenue was 176.358 billion yuan, an increase of 4.72% year-on-year.

In terms of passenger transport revenue, the growth of the international market has become the key engine driving the performance of the three major airlines. Taking China Southern Airlines as an example, during the reporting period, the newly added major routes or destinations included Guangzhou-Madrid, Guangzhou-Darwin, Fuzhou-Phnom Penh, Hangzhou-Kuala Lumpur, and Chongqing-Jakarta, with the number of flights along the "Belt and Road" countries increasing by 15.4% year-on-year. International passenger transport capacity input (measured in available seat kilometers) increased by 18.46% year-on-year, international passenger turnover (measured in revenue passenger kilometers) increased by 19.57% year-on-year, and the load factor of international routes increased by 0.78 percentage points year-on-year.

Air China's international passenger transport revenue increased by 14.13% year-on-year. China Eastern Airlines also stated in its financial report that the company's main business international revenue increased significantly, with multiple new international routes opened, and international transport turnover increased by 19.77% year-on-year Industry insiders in civil aviation have stated that the recovery of international routes plays an important role in improving airline performance. On one hand, it can enhance the utilization of wide-body aircraft, and on the other hand, it can reduce the input of domestic capacity, alleviating the intense competition in the domestic market to some extent.

Continuously increasing revenue and reducing costs

In addition to the support from the international market, the three major airlines have also achieved good results in operational management, service operations, and cost control.

China Southern Airlines mentioned in its financial report that it is promoting a new round of optimization of five major structural adjustments, further optimizing fleet structure and improving the efficiency of real estate use; enhancing hub competitiveness, with passenger traffic at Guangzhou and Beijing hubs increasing by 19.2% and 3.8% year-on-year, respectively; steadily advancing digital transformation, formulating an "AI+" special action implementation plan, establishing an enterprise-level large model platform, and launching 417 intelligent agents; strengthening code-sharing and joint cooperation with international airlines, and launching cross-airline one-stop ticketing and baggage-free services at 11 overseas points.

In terms of reducing capital costs, China Eastern Airlines' financial report shows that the company has deepened internal capital circulation and reduced external high-cost financing; seizing market windows to issue bonds, with a total of 9 short-term financing and 6 medium-term notes issued throughout the year, raising a total of 30.5 billion yuan; fully leveraging the cost advantages of bill financing, with a total discount scale reaching 42.5 billion yuan for the year; accurately assessing the downward trend of LPR and proactively laying out low-cost funds. By 2025, the company's interest expenses will decrease by 963 million yuan, a year-on-year reduction of 18.71%.

In terms of expanding the customer base, Air China’s financial report mentioned that the group focuses on the public business traveler and mainstream Phoenix Miles member markets, launching a 31st anniversary appreciation product, which generated an additional revenue of 37.64 million yuan during the off-peak season through innovative delivery of digital assets. The customer manager system has been fully implemented domestically and expanded to overseas first and second-class business departments. By the end of the reporting period, the number of effective large customers reached 7,887, achieving revenue of 15.71 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.3%.

Expanding international routes and cultivating emerging markets

From the performance situation in 2025, the three major airlines achieved collective profitability in a single quarter in the third quarter. The aforementioned industry insiders pointed out that the primary goal of the three major airlines is to do everything possible to reduce losses in the off-peak season, accelerate the recovery and increase of international routes, and continuously promote cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

According to the flight schedule for the summer and autumn seasons, the three major airlines are still increasing their investment in the international market.

On the first day of the new flight season, China Southern Airlines opened the Beijing Daxing-Helsinki route, which is its first route to Finland and the first direct flight to Northern Europe opened by a domestic airline at Beijing Daxing Airport. The inaugural flight had a seat occupancy rate of 98%. According to its financial report, the major routes planned for addition by China Southern Airlines Group in 2026 also include Xiamen-Vientiane, Fuzhou-Amsterdam, Fuzhou-Beihai, Beijing Daxing-Liancheng, and Nanjing-Jakarta Air China plans to increase flights on more than 10 routes including Beijing-Warsaw, Milan, and Budapest, and will add two new international routes: Beijing Daxing-Frankfurt and Beijing Daxing-Milan. According to data from China Eastern Airlines, its average weekly scheduled departures for international and regional routes reached 1,400 flights. Among them, European routes had over 160 weekly departures, a year-on-year increase of 24%.

On March 27, Air China held a performance briefing for 2025, where Air China President Qu Guangji mentioned during the interactive session that the company will further seek to enhance revenue levels and strive for good returns. At the same time, it will actively respond to market changes, quickly adapt to market developments, improve resource allocation efficiency, strengthen collaboration among Air China group carriers, and actively implement the "National, Shenzhen, Mountain, and Australia flying together" initiative.

China Eastern Airlines stated in its financial report that by 2026, it aims to refine the domestic market, expand the international market, and cultivate emerging markets. It will continue to optimize passenger transfer processes and enhance transfer connection efficiency. The airline will release the total amount of flight resources, optimize capacity allocation, and focus on improving aircraft utilization rates. It will deepen the "Aviation + Cultural Tourism Business Exhibition" industry collaboration, expand multimodal transport and value-added services, and establish a refined, dynamic cost control system to strictly manage the entire chain's hidden costs.

Beijing Business Journal reporters Guan Zichen and Niu Qingyan