In recent days, the volume of passengers transported off the island of Hainan by ferry and by air has remained consistently high, with the number of departures exceeding the previous record highs. Now that the Spring Festival holiday has ended, has the "difficulty of leaving the island" in Hainan eased?

On the morning of the 20th, the official "Haikou Release" account issued an announcement: as of 9:00 on February 20, the "three ports" of Haikou have resumed normal transport order. The announcement also advised drivers of cars leaving the island to check in and enter the port no more than 3 hours before the scheduled sailing time on their tickets. Those without tickets and those arriving more than 3 hours early cannot enter the port. The "three ports" mentioned in the announcement refer to the three cross-sea ports owned by Haikou City, namely Xiuying Port, Xinhai Port, and Railway South Port. Xinhai Port is the largest of the three and also the country's largest integrated ro-ro passenger terminal hub; during this Spring Festival travel rush, its 18 berths have been operating at full capacity every day.

What does the resumption of normal transport order at Haikou's "three ports" mean?

On the morning of the 20th, "Haikou Release" issued an announcement stating that the "three ports" of Haikou have resumed normal transport order. Does this mean the peak of vehicles leaving the island has passed?

He Anjun, deputy director of the Strait Office of the Pearl River Navigation Administration of the Ministry of Transport: The resumption of normal transport order at Haikou's "three ports" means, first, that the vehicles at the emergency waiting parking lots set up under the influence of heavy fog have all been cleared and have returned to the inspection gates of the respective port areas; second, that transport pressure has been greatly eased, on-site order is orderly, and traffic flow across the city has returned to normal.

Compared with the sixth day of the first lunar month this Spring Festival (the single-day peak, when 188,000 passengers and 39,000 vehicles were transported in a single day), the ro-ro passenger and vehicle traffic across the Qiongzhou Strait on the 20th showed a downward trend. Travel time has also been greatly shortened; on that day, vehicles with reservations, following the guidance in their ticket purchase information, could generally board and cross within 3 hours.

In recent days, the port authorities have taken numerous measures, including optimizing loading procedures, improving vessel turnaround efficiency, scientifically reallocating cabin space, dynamically selling additional tickets, enhancing port-vessel coordination efficiency, shortening loading and unloading times, optimizing the ticket purchasing process, expanding server capacity, and strengthening the system's concurrent processing capacity. At the same time, together with vigorous publicity and the rolling release of port information notices, these measures have effectively eased congestion and eliminated long queues.

According to forecasts, the coming days will show an overall slow downward trend, and ro-ro passenger transport across the Qiongzhou Strait will gradually return to fast, efficient, and comfortable normal operation.

In recent days, are flights leaving Hainan still "hard to get"?

On the airport side, Haikou Meilan, Sanya Phoenix, and Qionghai Boao airports have continued to increase capacity in recent days to ensure tourists' return journeys. Have the situations reported by tourists in previous days—that flights leaving Hainan were hard to get or only high-priced tickets remained—now been eased?

Ke Yiqi, route development supervisor of the marketing department of Haikou Meilan Airport: The number of outbound passengers handled by Meilan Airport on the 20th was slightly lower than the Spring Festival single-day peak of 64,900, but it is still operating at a high level.

At present, Meilan Airport handles about 60,000 outbound passengers per day, accounting for about one-half of the outbound passengers at Hainan Island's three major airports. During the just-concluded 2024 Spring Festival Golden Week, Meilan Airport transported a total of 929,500 passengers, with the daily average up 51.43% year on year compared with the same period in 2023.

To cope with the passenger flow peak, Hainan Island's three major airports have actively coordinated with airlines to increase flight capacity, swap in wide-body aircraft, and reasonably open additional check-in counters and security channels according to peak time nodes to avoid serious passenger congestion.

To keep the Spring Festival travel rush path for passengers leaving the island and returning home fully open, Meilan Airport has coordinated with major airlines to increase flight capacity. Starting February 17, China Southern Airlines added 2 one-way outbound flights per day, mainly on the Haikou-Guangzhou and Haikou-Zhuhai outbound routes, providing a total of about 4,200 seats to further ease the tightness of return flights.

In addition, Haikou Meilan Airport has opened a "air-rail intermodal dedicated counter" to strengthen traffic guidance and divert passengers through seamless air-rail transfer services.

It is understood that the peak of return trips leaving Hainan Island began to decline on February 19 and is expected to return to normal after the Lantern Festival.