On December 27, the 2018 National Civil Aviation Work Conference was held in Beijing, during which an important instruction guiding the work of transportation from Ma Kai, the Vice Premier of the State Council of the PRC, was conveyed and studied, the major achievements made in civil aviation since 2017 and the 18th CPC National Congress were summarized and reviewed, the current emerging situation in civil aviation development was fully analyzed, the strategic plans for building China into a civil aviation powerhouse in this new era were discussed, and the overall requirements and major tasks of the civil aviation work in 2018 were clearly put forward. Li Xiaopeng, the Minister of Transport, attended the meeting and delivered a speech. CAAC Administrator Feng Zhenglin made a speech entitled "Promoting High-quality Development of Civil Aviation Industry and Embarking on a New Journey to Build China into a Civil Aviation Powerhouse in the New Era". Song Fulong, head of the discipline inspection team of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection stationed in the Ministry of Transport, and CAAC Deputy Administrator Li Jian attended the meeting chaired by CAAC Deputy Administrator Dong Zhiyi. CAAC Deputy Administrator Wang Zhiqing delivered a closing speech and made arrangements for the 2018 air transport work during the Spring Festival travel rush.
In his instructions, Ma Kai gave full credit to the transport work in 2017 and the past five years. In particular, he acknowledged the new achievements and progress made by the national transportation system in deepening the supply-side structural reforms, serving major national strategies, improving the industrial governance system, and promoting the integrated development of railways, highways, waterway transportation, civil aviation and postal services. Ma Kai urged system-wide comrades to comprehensively and thoroughly implement in 2018 the guiding principles of the 19th National Congress of the CPC and the Central Economic Work Conference, adhere to the general theme of seeking progress while ensuring stability, take the reform and opening up as the driving force, and focus on further promoting the supply-side structural reform of the transportation industry, so as to make new and greater contributions to the national economic and social development and the construction of a safe and convenient public transportation system.
In his speech, Li Xiaopeng pointed out that since the 18th CPC National Congress, breakthroughs have been made in the work of civil aviation, which effectively promoted the development of modern transportation system and made positive contribution to economic and social development. He emphasized that in the future, we should, under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, earnestly study and implement the guiding principles of the 19th CPC National Congress and the Central Economic Work Conference, have an accurate knowledge of the overall requirements, strategic objectives and framework for building China into a powerhouse in transportation, give full play to the important role of civil aviation in the building of a transportation powerhouse and strive to embark on a new journey to build a transportation powerhouse.
Feng Zhenglin pointed out in his work report that in 2017, the civil aviation industry thoroughly implemented the guidelines in the important instructions and directives of the party Central Committee and the State Council on civil aviation work, and fully implemented the "one-two-three-three-four" principles guiding the overall work on civil aviation in the new era by focusing on the theme of “welcoming and providing support to the 19th National Congress of the Party, studying and implementing the guiding principles of the 19th CPC National Congress”, and as a result all new key areas related to civil aviation development saw some new actions taken and a new look taken up. In 2017, there was no air transport accident or aviation security accident. The human-induced incident saw a 21.6% decrease from the same period of last year. The annual flight hours exceeded 10 million for the first time. It is estimated that the total turnover in 2017 will be 108.3 billion ton-km, the passenger traffic 549 million, and cargo and mail traffic 7.12 million tons, increases of 12.5%, 12.6%, 6.6% respectively. Nationwide there are 32 airports whose passenger traffic exceeded 10 million. From January to November, the industry garnered a profit of 69.28 billion yuan, an increase of 16.4% over the same period last year. The annual average flight on-time performance rate was 71%, with the rate in November reaching 84.59%, the highest in the past 102 months. The whole year saw a total of 82.5 billion yuan investment made in fixed assets, a YoY increase of 5.5%, including investment and subsidies of 22.2 billion yuan made through Civil Aviation Development Fund. “Serviceman first” channels were opened in the first batch of 184 airports in the country, and nursing rooms were set up at 222 airports. 203 routes were newly added between China and countries along the "Belt and Road", which led to a YoY increase of 23.9% and 38.4% respectively in passenger traffic and cargo and mail traffic. 5 new general aviation airports were added, 56 GA companies were newly introduced, and a total of 2 272 GA aircraft flew 735 000 hours. Among the 158 reform initiatives required to be put in place this year, 148 have been implemented, an implementation rate of 93.7%.
The meeting proposed the general requirements for civil aviation work in 2018, the main objectives of safety work, the major indicators forecasting the development of civil aviation, and major tasks.
In 2018, the general requirements for civil aviation work are as follows: under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, thoroughly study and implement the guiding principles of the 19th CPC National Congress and the Central Economic Work Conference, adhere to the general theme of seeking progress while ensuring stability, adhere to the new development concept, focus on supply-side structural reform, fully implement the "one-two-three-three-four" principles guiding the overall work on civil aviation in the new era, adhere as always to the bottom line of ensuring flight safety, building a clean and honest government, and providing cordial services, focus on people's needs and concerns, target key issues which need urgent solution in order to support industry development, promote high-quality development of civil aviation, and embark on a new journey to build China into a civil aviation powerhouse in the new era.
The main objectives of the work on aviation safety in 2018 are to: eliminate major and extremely serious human-induced air transport accidents, prevent hijacking, bombing and other onboard terrorist incidents, prevent serious human-induced aviation security accidents, and prevent major aircraft ground accidents and extremely serious aircraft maintenance accidents.
The main indicators forecasting the development of civil aviation in 2018 are: total turnover of 120.8 billion ton-km, passenger traffic of 612 million passengers and cargo and mail transport of 7.56 million tonnes, up 11.6%, 11.4% and 6.2% respectively over 2017; average annual flight regularity not less than 75%.
