Yantai International Airport, which is located in East China's Shandong province, receives a growing number of travelers during this year's Spring Festival holiday. [Photo by Tang Ke/Shm News]

China's civil aviation sector, which was nearly dormant for the past three years due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, saw a strong rebound during this year's Spring Festival holiday.

Yantai International Airport, which is located in East China's Shandong province, operated 6,770 flights during the 40-day Spring Festival travel rush, an increase of 14.8 percent year-on-year, while the passenger throughput at the airport totaled 608,031, up 24.2 percent year-on-year, according to official data.

This year's 40-day Spring Festival travel rush began on Jan 7 and ended on Feb 15. It was the first travel rush since China optimized its COVID-19 management measures last month.

Currently, Yantai has resumed flights to 49 cities across the country, including Harbin, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenyang, and the city also added a number of new direct flights to some hot tourist destinations.

Zhang Xun, manager of the market development department at the airport, said that with the fast recovery of domestic tourism market, Yantai's civil aviation sector is expected to embrace a full recovery.

With the gradual and orderly recovery of outbound tourism, people are eager to fly to different countries, and Yantai International Airport has actively negotiated with outbound airlines to speed up the resumption of international air services.

The air freight service also witnessed a boom at the airport. During this year's Spring Festival travel rush, the air cargo handling capacity of Yantai International Airport increased by 3.3 percent to 6,813 metric tons, which has helped inject strong impetus into the city's logistics sector.

Currently, seven international cargo routes from Yantai to cities including Incheon in South Korea, Japan's Tokyo and Osaka, and Milan in Italy have been resumed, and the density of international cargo routes has ranked first in Shandong.

According to official data, the air cargo handling capacity of Yantai airport reached 75,000 tons in 2021, the highest record since its reopening after COVID-19 measures were implemented.

This year, Yantai International Airport plans to open more direct flights to Europe and America, and resume flights to Moscow, aiming to become a more internationally recognized airport.