On August 27, data from Qunar Travel showed that this year's National Day holiday saw the "most affordable start in nearly three years." From September 27 to October 1, the average airfare hit its lowest level in nearly three years, with some popular routes seeing average prices more than 10% lower than last year.

The trend of booking tickets in advance for the "Super Golden Week" is significant. On the platform, advance bookings for hotels in popular cities during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays have increased by nearly 40% year-on-year, and the enthusiasm for locking in air tickets a month in advance is 21% higher than the same period last year. Looking at the average daily departure airfares, the working days before the Mid-Autumn Festival are the period with the lowest airfares throughout the holiday: departures on September 22nd have an average price 30% lower than the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival (September 25th) and 50% lower than the first day of the National Day holiday (October 1st). As of now, there are still many air tickets available for the long holiday.

Data shows that, taking Beijing as an example, direct flights to Dalian, Shenyang, Daqing, Yinchuan, and other destinations on September 27th cost only around 300 yuan. Regarding return trips, compared to previous years when the peak was highly concentrated in the last two days of the holiday, this year's return flight peak is more dispersed from October 4th to 7th, resulting in a more gradual peak and lower return costs. For instance, on October 4th, the average ticket price was over 20% lower than the price during the return period last year.

Industry insiders believe that this year's extended "Double Festival" (National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival) is conducive to long-distance travel and off-peak travel. Overall travel enthusiasm is higher than in previous years, but travel costs are lower.

(Source: Shanghai Securities News reporter Chen Mengna)