The Zhitong Finance App learned that the airline stock trend was sluggish. As of press release, China Eastern Airlines (00670) fell 2.56% to HK$3.05; China Southern Airlines (01055) fell 2.08% to HK$3.3; and Air China (00753) fell 1.22% to HK$4.05.
According to the news, due to the war in the Middle East driving up aviation fuel prices, the losses of the three major state-owned airlines are expected to increase sharply year-on-year in the first half of the year. Air China, China Eastern Airlines, and China Southern Airlines revealed their 2026 semi-annual performance forecasts last night. Based on the performance forecast range, the three companies expect total net losses attributable to shareholders of listed companies in the first half of this year to be 7.373 billion yuan to 8.973 billion yuan, a further increase over the total loss of 4.770 billion yuan for the same period last year. Based on the total profit of 4.8 billion yuan in the first quarter, the cumulative losses of the three major airlines in the second quarter exceeded 10 billion dollars.
According to reports, aviation fuel procurement costs are the largest cost component of airlines. Affected by the sharp rise in international oil prices, domestic aviation fuel prices also rose sharply year on year. The factory price of aviation fuel in April exceeded the historical high in July 2022, and the price had doubled from 2025 by May. It is worth noting that recently, the situation between the US and Iran has been repeated again. According to CCTV news reports, on July 14 local time, US President Trump said that the attack on Iran will continue “until I say 'that's enough'.”