Wendy Zhang/ Shanghai Daily news

It has become customary for domestic airfares to soar during the golden week holiday, a peak travel period.
Early this month, domestic air-carriers formed an alliance to allow airfares to decline by a maximum of 45 percent from the base prices. However, with the weeklong May Day holiday around the corner, the price alliance has begun to break up.
On May 1, six airlines will operate more than ten routes from Beijing to Shenzhen. China Eastern Airlines and Sichuan Airlines are sticking to the full price of 1,750 yuan (US$211); China Southern Airlines and Air China are offering 30 percent discounts, or 1,230 yuan on the route; Hainan Airlines is secretly providing 40 percent off, or 1,050 yuan and Shenzhen Airlines is making a special offer of 700 yuan for its ZH9852 scheduled flight.

Wang, planning to travel to Xi'an for the May Day holiday, is happy to know that she can get 40 percent off for the airfare on April 30. "Only full-priced air-tickets were available at this time last year," Wang said.
Tourists could buy cheaper air-tickets if they booked around four days ago, said an industry analyst.
This May Day holiday will be the seventh golden week holiday, and Chinese tourists know to avoid the large crowds during the holidays, so they prefer to travel before or after the holiday, the analyst pointed out.
Above all, an increase of 130 aircrafts in the domestic aviation market this year is a major reason for an abundance of tickets, he stressed, adding that faster trains have also attracted many travelers.
From May 1 to 3, airfares to popular tourists cities are still expected to increase, but after that, airfares to such business cities as Shanghai and Guangzhou will decline, he said.