Air traffic around China picked up quickly in July, boosted by the various promotion activities by the airlines which coincided with the arrival of the summer peak season.

　　China southern Airlines Co Ltd, the country's largest air carrier by fleet size, said it carried 1.7 million passengers in July, 3.9 percent fewer than a year earlier. This was also the smallest year-on-year decline since the three-month SARS outbreak which started to wane across China in June.

　　Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines Co Ltd has already recovered since it reported a year-on-year 6.99 percent increase in July's passenger numbers after sharp declines for three consecutive months. It carried a total of 1,037,660 people last month.

　　Industry analysts attributed the recovery in the domestic aviation industry to the control of the SARS outbreak and the rebound in travel demand sparked by the airlines' air fare discounts, some as low as 90 percent off.

　　"The recovery is far quicker than we had expected. Attractive promotion campaigns launched by carriers do help them a lot restore travel confidence around China," said an industry analyst surnamed Li with a local securities firm.