It was learnt from the CAAC press conference on June 13 that civil aviation continued to operate safely and smoothly in May, with the air transport market growing at a steady rate. The total turnover of the whole industry stood at 10.78 billion ton-kilometers, up by 7.9% year on year, of which 6.85 billion ton-kilometers was attributed to domestic routes, and 3.93 billion ton-kilometers to international routes, up by 7.8% and 8.1% year on year respectively.

China civil aviation has always adhered to the principle of safety first. According to Qiao Yibin, Deputy Director of the Aviation Safety Office of CAAC, in May, the industry recorded 1.019 million hours of transport flight operation, a year-on-year increase of 6.7% with no accidents, and 99,000 hours of general aviation flight operation, a year-on-year increase of 5.9%. As of the end of May, transport aviation has maintained safe flight for 105 months or 73.42 million hours in a row.

In terms of air traffic, Dong Faxin, Deputy Director General of the Development Planning Department of CAAC, said that the passenger transport market showed strengthened performance in May with a rapid growth in passenger traffic on international routes. A total of 54.508 million passengers were transported, an increase of 8.7% year on year. The volume transported by domestic routes and international routes were respectively 48.477 million and 6.031 million, an increase of 7.6% and 18.7% respectively over the same period of last year. The passenger throughput and cargo and mail throughput achieved by airports nationwide rallied respectively to 110 million passengers and 1.423 million tons, up by 7.6% and 0.8% year on year respectively. From January to May this year, the industry completed a total turnover of 52.21 billion ton-kilometers, cargo and mail volume of 2.904 million tons, and a passenger traffic of 268 million people, which was an increase of 8.5% over the same period of last year.

Flight regularity and efficiency are closely related to the travel experience of passengers. Sun Shaohua, Deputy Director General of Operation Monitoring Center of CAAC, revealed that in May, the whole industry supported a total of 500,000 flights of various types, with a daily average of 16,132 flights, up by 6.14% year on year. Flight regularity was 80.20%, up by 3.20% year on year, and airport clearance regularity was 84.03%, a year-on-year increase of 3.13%. With southern China entering the thunderstorm season in May, the proportion of delayed flights attributed to weather factors stood at 45.51%, which was 8.67 percentage points lower than the same period of last year.