Typhoon Bavi continued to paralyze air travel across eastern China today following its double landfall in Zhejiang province, forcing widespread flight cancellations at major aviation hubs including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Ningbo. Local media reported that 45 airports issued severe thunderstorm alerts throughout the day as the vast weather system pushed inland.
By 8:00 AM local time, airports across eastern and southern China—including Wuxi, Changzhou, Foshan, Wenzhou, Hangzhou, Nantong, and Yangzhou—were experiencing large-scale operational shutdowns.
Data from the flight tracking portal Feichangzhun showed severely diminished operational capacity by midday. Shanghai Pudong International Airport was operating at just 21% capacity, with 585 flights canceled and 592 delayed or pending. Shanghai Hongqiao Airport faired slightly better at 44% capacity, recording 235 cancellations.
Airports closer to the storm’s path bore the brunt of the disruptions. Hangzhou Airport reported a mere 23% operational normalcy with 360 canceled flights, while Ningbo fell to 16% capacity with 144 cancellations.
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Wenzhou Airport, located right where Bavi made its second landfall around midnight, saw its operational capacity plummet to 15%, loging 106 cancellations. Further north in Nanjing, operations were at 67% capacity with 209 cancellations, while Fuzhou Airport in the south operated at 57% capacity with 68 cancellations.
In Taiwan, which the storm brushed past before striking the mainland, conditions at Taoyuan International Airport began stabilizing compared to Saturday, returning to 78% capacity despite 83 remaining cancellations.
The travel chaos follows Bavi’s initial Saturday evening landfall in Yuhuan and its subsequent midnight landfall in Yueqing. Although the system has since weakened into a tropical storm as it advances northwest, it continues to dump torrential rain across multiple provinces.
Before hitting the Chinese mainland, the storm left at least 87 people injured in Taiwan and five injured in Japan’s Okinawa prefecture, while prompting Zhejiang authorities to preemptively evacuate 1.71 million residents to safety.
