CAAC has recently issued the newly revised version of Regulations on the Licensing of Civil Airports , which will take effect on January 1, 2019.

The Regulations on the Licensing of Civil Airports issued in 2005 has played an important role in standardizing and supervising the management of civil airport licenses. In order to better meet the needs of the airport industry and to promote its sustainable and healthy development, CAAC officially started to revise the regulations in 2013, which was renamed the Regulations on the Licensing of Transport Airports (hereinafter referred to as the Regulations).

The Regulations contains 61 articles in seven chapters. Compared with the original version, two chapters respectively titled Airport User Manual and Supervision and Management were added, and two original chapters --- Civil Airport Name Management and Establishment of International Airports were incorporated into Airport Name Management. It is particularly noteworthy that in order to promote general aviation development, CAAC has formulated a separate document named the Measures for Classified Management of General Airports so as to carry out separate management of general airports. General airports are no longer required to be in line with the Regulations.

According to statistics, from 2005 to 2017, the number of licensed transport airports in China increased from 134 to 229, up by 70.9%; the annual passenger throughput of airports increased from 280 million to 1.15 billion, up by 310.7%. The Regulations will provide a more enabling environment for airports to develop in a sustainable and healthy manner.