From motorcycles to C919 jets: China's travel rush evolution

After completing his final delivery, truck driver Zhou Qiang boarded flight CZ8233 back home for Spring Festival celebrations, eager to experience his maiden trip on China's domestically developed C919 aircraft.

Once aboard the plane, he could not resist snapping photos to share with his family later. "The seats are very comfortable with plenty of legroom. I can even cross my legs," Zhou said. The flight from the southern city of Guangzhou to Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, cut his travel time from at least seven hours by train to just two and a half hours this year.

China is currently in the midst of its annual 40-day Spring Festival travel rush, known as chunyun, a period that sees hundreds of millions of people traveling for family reunions.

As the country's airlines of China Eastern, Air China and China Southern have added the C919 aircraft to their fleets, this homegrown aircraft model has been involved in chunyun — with 16 such jets in service this year.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China has forecast that the number of air passengers during this year's chunyun is likely to exceed 90 million, potentially setting a new record.

"Unlike in the past, when many braved the cold by traveling home on motorcycles, more and more fellows now choose high-speed trains or planes," Zhou noted.

Until about a decade ago, the sight of migrant workers riding motorcycles from the economic hub of the Pearl River Delta to labor-export regions like Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan was an iconic phenomenon during chunyun.

Huang Xiaoyan and her husband were among them, enduring a grueling 30-hour journey on two wheels from Foshan, Guangdong Province, to their rural home in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

"It was freezing, especially when it rained. The road was slippery and very risky," recalled Huang, who works in the plastic manufacturing industry.

Guangdong's official figures show that such motorcycle brigades had peaked at 1.1 million trips during the Spring Festival travel season of 2013, before declining in 2014. This decline coincided with the launch of high-speed rail lines connecting Guangdong with regions like Guizhou and Guangxi.

This year, railways are expected to handle over 510 million passenger trips, averaging 12.75 million daily — a 5.5-percent increase from 2024, while road trips are forecast to reach 7.2 billion.

Huang said growth in the incomes of migrant workers has resulted in fewer being willing to endure the hardship and danger of riding motorcycles home. Over the past three years, she and her brother have driven home in his car.

"Almost no one I know rides motorcycles home now," Huang added.