China civil aviation industry will implement 2017/2018 winter season flight schedule from October 29, 2017 to March 24, 2018. By far, preparations for nationwide seasonal rescheduling have been made. In the new season, 50 domestic airlines, 13 airlines from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and 143 foreign airlines will operate on average 14,460 flights per day as planned, up by 5.7% compared with 2016/2017 winter season. 90.3% of the flights will be operated by domestic airlines, 2.1%, airlines from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and 7.6%, foreign airlines.

According to this year’s winter season flight schedule, domestic airlines will operate 63,765 domestic flight per week, among which 419 exclusive domestic routes are newly added, mainly involving routes between airports in Zunyi, Guoluo, Ulanqab and Boao, and Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Kunming, Xi’an, Tianjin, Zhengzhou and Wuhan airports.

As for international routes and flights, 31 domestic airlines will operate 10,794 flights every week to 155 cities in 58 countries (regions); and 134 airlines from 59 foreign countries will operate 7,544 flights every week between 135 foreign cities and 51 Chinese cities. 108 international routes are newly launched, mainly involving Western Europe, Australia, Russia and Southeast Asia.

Compared with past seasons, the new season features optimized structure of flight schedules. As the civil aviation resources available are in a shortage and the supporting systems are operating at full capacity, CAAC implemented several measures to control operation and adjust flight structure, in order to properly adjust and meticulously manage the traffic load at high-density airports and congested airway points from the sources, and optimize the structure of flight schedules from the perspectives of direction and traffic flow, time arrangement and structure of route network. The adjustment focused on altering traffic flow of busy airports in eastern China and properly easing the limitations for traffic increment in the northwestern and northeastern areas. The adjustment also prioritized optimizing the structure of morning departing flight schedules in the hub airports of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen to further improve safety margin and enhance flight operation efficiency.

Meanwhile, the new season also features strong characteristics regarding international flight arrangement, which are demonstrated as countries along the “Belt and Road” maintaining the momentum of rapid increase in newly launched routes. Domestic airlines plan to add 95 international routes connecting “Belt and Road” destinations, mainly countries in East Europe, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and South Pacific Ocean, in the new season. And foreign airlines will newly launch 18 international routes to “Belt and Road” countries, mainly Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Kazakhstan.

In addition, CAAC also improved scheduled flight management work for the new season, adopting online review and approval for domestic airlines’ international flight schedules during seasonal rescheduling, which was aimed to effectively improve management capabilities and work efficiency.