Li Jincheng, a volunteer support teacher in a small town in Yunnan province, flew home on Jan 23 for the Spring Festival, after traveling for three days by bus from the primary school he worked at to the province's capital.

The 25-year-old postgraduate student at Yunnan University said it is very important for him to go back home to Shandong province for the festival, although it usually costs him four days and more than 3,000 yuan ($456) on air tickets.

But it is different this year, as he was sponsored by HNA Group, the fourth-largest airline group in China.

Li was one of the recipients of this year's "Sending Love Home" from HNA Group, which is an annual charity event. The company has been providing free air tickets to poor college students and migrant workers every Spring Festival since 2013.

"We know that many young people cannot afford the journey home during the traditional festival and as a big company, we need to repay society," said Wei Ting, deputy general manager of HNA Group's social responsibility. The event has already helped over 340 young people spend the important festival with their families in the past three years, Wei said.

The exact number of this year's free tickets is not known yet but looks likely to be over 200 according to the current applications, he said.

This year's "sending love home" actually started on Dec 31, when Liu Sai, a Chinese student at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Kazakhstan, arrived in Beijing with the first free air ticket.

The Spring Festival travel rush started on Jan 24 and will last until March 3, which means most of the recipients of the free tickets will travel during the period.

Nine subsidiary airlines of HNA Group, including Hainan Airlines, Tianjin Airlines and West Air, are taking part.

Different from previous years, Africa World Airlines, which is a Ghana based subsidiary of the group, is taking part into the event for the first time, which makes the event more international. Ten poor African students will receive free air tickets from Africa World Airlines.

wangwen@chinadaily.com.cn