The percentage of flights affected skyrocketed to 82.14 per cent on Sunday and 75.6 per cent on Monday, according to independent analyst Li Hanming, citing his research data covering all mainland China-based airlines.

“The flight-ticket cancellations [on Sunday] were 27 times that of new bookings, which shows safety concerns are the dominating factor for travel,” he said, adding that he had not seen cancellations on such a scale since early in 2020, as Covid-19 infections surged at the tail end of the Lunar New Year travel period.

The spread of the coronavirus resulted in flight capacity into and out of China falling “sharply” around the holiday that year, according to an analysis posted on the World Economic Forum website. A 71 per cent capacity drop on February 17, 2020, over the same date in 2019 was China’s sharpest ever, it said.

On Friday, after Beijing’s warning to Chinese travellers, airlines offered full refunds for flights to Japan.