(Aug 28): For years, China’s three state-owned airlines kept adding flights on international routes to chase after a rising middle class that can afford to fly overseas. Now, they are slowing that down in favour of the local market.

In the first half of 2017, Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines increased international seats at less than half the pace of the same period last year, according to data from the carriers. Two of them have stepped up domestic capacity.

The pullback on overseas routes may be a sign that Chinese airlines are eschewing aggressive expansion and paring cheaper tickets on long-haul flights from smaller cities to destinations like New York and Sydney. Local passenger traffic rose as much as 16.7% in May -- the most in more than two years -- and grew more than twice the pace of international services in the first six months, data from Civil Aviation Administration of China show.

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