China's domestic airlines expect record passenger numbers during next week's public holiday despite the recent crash of an Air China jet in South Korea which killed at least 122 people.

The week-long May Day public holiday, starting on Wednesday, will see internal flights 90 percent full, sources in the airlines told the China Daily.

The rush for seats has not been dampened by the April 15 accident which saw the Air China Boeing 767 crash into a fog-shrouded mountain near the southern city of Busan, they .

However insurance industry officials also told the paper that the accident had spurred an increase in the number of people taking out travel insurance ahead of the holiday.

Millions of Chinese take to the skies, roads and railways for each of the country's three week-long national holidays: Mayday, October's National Day, and the Spring Festival over the Lunar New Year.

Railway operators were also adding extra trains to their timetables before next week's break to cope with an anticipated surge in tourist numbers.

Around 90 percent of tickets between major cities and tourist destinations were already booked up from April 30 to May 3.

Internal tourism has boomed in China during recent years of rapid economic expansion, spurred by the introduction of the trio of week-long holidays.

This has helped the fortunes of China's domestic aviation sector, much of which has thrived even through the gloom cast over the global airline market following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

( China Daily April 26, 2002)