China's Spring Festival travel surge starts with record trips expected

Passengers are pictured at a platform of Harbin Railway Station in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Feb. 2, 2026. (Photo by Yuan Yong/Xinhua)

BEIJING, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- China ushered in its largest annual population migration on Monday, 15 days ahead of the 2026 Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese New Year.

A total of 9.5 billion passenger trips are expected during this year's travel rush period that will end on March 13, which will be a historic high.

Of this total, road trips remain the dominant mode of travel, accounting for approximately 80 percent.

An estimated 540 million passenger trips will be handled by the country's railways, while the civil aviation sector will see 95 million trips. Both the overall scale and daily peak traffic of rail and air travel are expected to surpass historic high levels this year.

In China, the 40-day travel surge will witness hundreds of millions of people return to their hometowns for family reunions.

Passengers prepare to board a train at a railway station in Lijiang, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Feb. 2, 2026. (Photo by Zhao Qingzu/Xinhua)

An aerial drone photo taken on Feb. 1, 2026 shows high-speed trains at a train depot in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Wu Zhizun)