China's western interior led the post-COVID rebound, but its lead over the coast has since narrowed while Central China slipped to the bottom of the table.
What this shows: The chart covers 2019 to 2025. It plots Eastern, Western, Central and Northeastern on a vertical axis of Throughput (2019 = 100). Latest values: Eastern 113; Western 116.3; Central 105.2; Northeastern 113.5.
Conditions and method
Airport throughput counts each passenger at every airport where they board or leave the aircraft, so it is roughly twice the number of passengers carried, and a connecting itinerary counts more than twice. It is the standard Chinese airport-handling measure.
The index assumes each region keeps a stable number of airport touches per passenger. That is weakest for Eastern, the hub-heavy region, whose mix of international and connecting traffic changed in 2020 to 2022. 2019 is the only pre-COVID year in the data, so it is the base.