After the National Day holiday ended, the travel market has shown a new "one down, one up" pattern: airfares have fallen rapidly, with some routes even cheaper than high-speed rail, while ride-sharing has further highlighted its role in station transfers, intercity trips and family travel during the holiday.
Data from Qunar shows that from October 9 to October 31, the average paid price of domestic air tickets was more than 30% lower than during the "October 1" holiday period, and the average paid price of flights to popular cities such as Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Changchun dropped by about 200 yuan.
A "2026 National Day Holiday Ride-Sharing Travel Insight Report" released by Didataxi shows that during the National Day holiday, orders for ride-sharing trips to transportation hubs such as airports, high-speed rail stations and bus stations accounted for 24.5%, rising to a peak of 27.2% on October 3, meaning that on that day more than one in every four ride-sharing orders was headed to a transportation hub.
During the same period, Didi data showed that during the National Day holiday, domestic ride-hailing order volume rose 7% year on year, and demand for rides outside users' home cities increased 54% compared with ordinary days. Among them, short-distance orders within 300 kilometers accounted for 94% of Didi ride-sharing trips. Hello Ride-sharing also predicted before the holiday that during the double holiday period, platform ride-sharing order demand was expected to reach 80 million trips, up about 30% year on year, with intercity travel expected to account for more than 44%.
As tourist numbers declined, post-holiday airfares fell noticeably. Qunar data shows that from October 9 to October 31, the average paid price of air tickets was more than 30% lower than during the "October 1" holiday period. A search by the reporter on the platform found that within the past week, departing from Beijing, the bare ticket price to Lanzhou was 200 yuan, to Quanzhou 230 yuan, and to Urumqi 300 yuan; departing from Shanghai, flights to Lijiang cost 200 yuan and to Shenyang 300 yuan; departing from Guangzhou, flights to Qingdao cost 259 yuan and to Chengdu 309 yuan. Even after adding airport construction and fuel surcharges, the prices were still lower than high-speed rail.
Outbound travel airfares also fell sharply. In the past week, the lowest fare from Beijing to Seoul was 518 yuan, from Shanghai to Ho Chi Minh City 460 yuan, from Chengdu to Bangkok 286 yuan, and from Guangzhou to Kuala Lumpur 329 yuan.
It should be noted that the fuel surcharge on domestic routes will increase starting October 10: 90 yuan per passenger for routes over 800 kilometers and 50 yuan for routes of 800 kilometers or less, up 20 yuan and 10 yuan respectively from before. Many travelers seized the window to buy low-priced tickets. Qunar platform data shows that on October 6, advance ticket bookings departing from cities such as Chengdu, Nanjing, Beijing and Shanghai for travel dates between October 15 and November 15 rose 40% compared with October 5. Among them, the top three popular autumn holiday destinations departing from Nanjing were Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Sanya.
Overall, during the National Day holiday, ride-sharing played a more prominent role in station transfers, county-level destinations and two-way intercity flows; the post-holiday drop in airfares opened a window for off-peak travel. For residents in Jiangsu, especially in Nanjing and Suzhou, whether flying long distances after the holiday to avoid the peak or using ride-sharing to connect surrounding counties and transportation hubs, travel choices have become more diverse.