As tensions have continued to rise between China and Japan over Taiwan’s sovereignty, the China-Japan market has suffered more than a 50% drop in weekly frequencies and a reduction of over 47% in weekly departing seats, the latest data showed.
Over 50% drop in flights between China and Japan
Cirium’s Diio Mi shows that one-way weekly departures from China to Japan are down 51.3% in February compared to the same month in 2025, with the reductions coming largely from China-based airlines.
When looking at China-based airline-only frequencies from China to Japan, the weekly departure drop is 56.7%, going from 1,031 to 446, with the number of weekly departing seats being 52.8% lower (YoY).
During the month, airlines with the biggest weekly departure cuts are China Eastern Airlines (130 fewer weekly departures), Spring Airlines (-84), and Juneyao Air (-82).
Overall, during the first three months of 2026, Chinese carriers’ scheduled China-to-Japan departures – overall, not weekly – are 57.2% lower YoY. Meanwhile, the six Japanese airlines’ three-month departures are relatively flat and are down 2.3%, when excluding the frequencies removed by Spring Japan, a low-cost carrier that is jointly owned by Japan Airlines and Spring Airlines, per Cirium’s Diio Mi.
Between January and March 2025, Japan was China’s biggest international market with 16,472 total flights and over 3.1 million seats. During the same period in 2026, the top spot now belongs to South Korea, with a total of 13,185 departing flights and over 2.4 million departing seats. Thailand is not far behind with 12,347 departures and over 2.2 million seats.
Between April and June, the China-to-Japan market is scheduled to have 47.7% fewer flights and 47.4% fewer departing seats.
Tokyo-Haneda maintains China capacity
However, when looking at the China-to-Japan capacity that is scheduled to arrive at Tokyo Haneda Airport (HND), there is only a 2.2% drop in total flights between January and March YoY.
Air China has even added more flights on its flights from Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) to HND.
The reason is that HND is one of the most slot-constrained airports in the world.
The diplomatic spat between China and Japan began in November 2025, when, responding to a question, Sanae Takaichi, the Prime Minister of Japan, said that if China were to use military force against Taiwan, Japan could interpret it as a “survival-threatening situation.”
As tensions continued to boil, spilling over to trade and travel-related decisions, China’s government asked its airlines to slash their flights to Japan through March, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
