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CAAC Holds Regular Press Conference of March20/03/2020

On March 12, CAAC held the regular press conference of March, introducing safe operation of civil aviation in February, relevant support policies of civil aviation in response to the COVID-19, work on containing the importation of the disease through international flights, and the role of general aviation in the prevention and control of the pandemic. Considering the present situation, the press conference was still conducted by live streaming.

Maintaining a Steady Situation in Safe Operation

76.6% of Major Airport Construction Projects Have Resumed

Xiong Jie, spokesman of CAAC and Director General of Aviation Safety Office, said that the whole industry realized 289,000 hours of flight regarding transport aviation in February, with a year-on-year decrease of 70.5%; there was no transportation aviation accident, and safe operation of the industry continued to maintain a stable situation. As of the end of February, China's transport aviation had continued to operate safely for 114 months or 82.03 million hours.

In terms of operation, the outbreak of COVID-19 has a great impact on the industry. In February, the total transport turnover was 2.52 billion ton-kilometers, down by 73.9% year on year; 8.34 million passengers was transported, decreased by 84.5% year-on-year; 297,000 tons of cargo and mail were transported, down by 21.0% year on year.

Concerning operational support, the whole industry guaranteed 157,000 flights of various kinds in February, with a daily average of 5,425 flights, a year-on-year decrease of 67.3%. The regularity rate of flights nationwide was 97.2%, up by 16.6 percentage points year on year. During the Spring Festival travel rush, a total of 412,000 flights were guaranteed, with an average of 11,302 flights per day, decreased by 32% year-on-year.

With regard to the resumption of work and production in the civil aviation industry, the present number of domestic flights has returned to about 40% of the normal level, with flights mainly concentrating in the Southwest and Northwest where labor forces are transported to places such as the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta. As of March 10, more than 530 chartered flights have resumed operation and guaranteed travelling needs of more than 28,000 passengers. As of March 11, the resumption rate of civil aviation airport construction projects has reached 61.7%. Among them, the resumption rate of major national airport construction projects has reached 76.6%. The number is expected to reach 86% in early April.

Ensuring smooth flow of passengers and cargo, and satisfying market demands have always been important for civil aviation, and also crucial for supporting the resumption of work and production under present situation. The reporter learned at the press conference that during the period of disease prevention and control, both the international and domestic route networks have remained normal despite the decreasing number of flights, and China’s civil aviation has been well prepared in all aspects and is fully capable of ensuring the needs of the market. At present, CAAC makes overall planning and coordination mainly through three aspects of industrial policy, industrial supervision and implementation in markets to ensure smooth flow of passengers and cargo in the air. In the process of resuming and increasing flights, CAAC will also maintain high-level safety alertness, delegating safety responsibilities at different levels in a solid manner, thus creating a safe operation environment for winning the fight against the epidemic.

Sixteen Measures in Five Aspects to Promote Stable Development of Industry

Civil aviation enterprises are also facing tremendous operational pressure due to the epidemic. In response to this problem, Zhang Qing, Assistant Director General of Department of Development Planning of CAAC, said at the press conference that CAAC had put forward 16 policies and measures in 5 aspects, namely implementing positive financial policies, actively promoting the reduction of fees and burdens, increasing investment in infrastructure, promoting the development of air transport and optimizing government services, so as to help enterprises overcome difficulties and promote the stable development of civil aviation industry.

In terms of increasing investment in infrastructure in particular, civil aviation entities can apply for subsidies from the Civil Aviation Development Fund when purchasing special fixed assets facilities and equipment to combat the epidemic; CAAC supports the start and resumption of major construction projects in a reasonable and orderly way and efforts will be stepped up to begin and resume a number of key infrastructure projects such as hub airports, poverty alleviation and the plan on defending the blue sky to strive to complete 100 billion yuan in fixed assets investment in the whole year; and investment will be increased in projects on new technology application; financial support for the planning and construction of strategic infrastructure such as air traffic control, information and oil supply.

In addition, in order to better promote the development of air transport during the outbreak of the epidemic, CAAC has also taken a number of measures, including flexible capacity introduction policies, optimizing the approval management of air routes and flights, extending the winter season flight plans of 2019 to May 2, suspending the assessment of implementation rate of flight plans, slot implementation rate and flight regularity rate of airlines, introducing a slot policy during season changeover to meet the needs of airlines to resume operation and exempting the assessment of slot implementation rate of domestic flights in summer season 2020, assisting airlines in strengthening communication and coordination with relevant national civil aviation authorities on issues such as traffic rights and slots.

Strictly Preventing Importation of Epidemic through International Flights

At present, preventing the importation of the epidemic overseas has become a major challenge for China's disease prevention and control. At the press conference, Zhu Tao, Director General of the Department of Flight Standards of CAAC, introduced that CAAC had mainly taken three measures to meet this challenge. First, multi-level, categorized and differentiated safety management has been implemented; three versions of guidelines for epidemic prevention and control have been issued successively, which categorized flights into three levels, namely high, medium and low risks. For high-risk flights, in-flight services are reduced as much as possible, the protection level of crew members is comprehensively reinforced and passengers are handled on the basis of division of areas. Passengers with suspicious symptoms are seated in the quarantine area and the destination airports are informed in time. Second, coordination and cooperation have been strengthened to build up a solid entry defense line at the Capital Airport. Area D of the Terminal 3 of the Capital Airport is designated as a special area for handling the arriving flights from key countries and regions; and centralized transfer of passengers and baggage are conducted accurately according to division of areas and categories. Third, international cooperation have been strengthened. In view of the outbreak of COVID-19 in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Iran, CAAC wrote letters to civil aviation authorities of these countries as quickly as possible, providing them with China’s guidelines of epidemic prevention for airlines and airports for reference, sharing the effective measures of China's civil aviation, and at the same time, sending the guidelines to all foreign airlines operating in China and airlines from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, who are advised to adhere to the same norm and adopt standardized protective measures during the epidemic.

Zhu Tao expressed that for the next step, CAAC would continue to cooperate with the departments of foreign affairs, customs, public security, health care, immigration and relevant entities of Beijing Municipality, to effectively promote the implementation of the mechanism of “data sharing, personnel handling, and cooperation in prevention and control”, strengthen the management of international flights, intensify the network of joint prevention and control, and strictly prevent the importation of the epidemic through international flights.

General Aviation Plays an Active Role in Epidemic Prevention and Control

During prevention and control of the epidemic, general aviation played an irreplaceable role in fighting against the epidemic by giving full play to the advantages of “small number of flights, multiple batches, high frequency and point-to-point”. In this regard, CAAC issued the Notice on Giving Full Play to the Role of General Aviation in Epidemic Prevention and Control on 13 February to build a “green channel” to support general aviation in fighting the epidemic.

As of March 11, a total of 140 general aviation enterprises in China had carried out 336 missions on the epidemic prevention and control with 952 aircraft, with a total of 6,938 movements and 2,290 flight hours. 63 medical personnel and 88.3 tons of medicines and materials were transported.

According to Jin Junhao, Assistant Director General of the Department of Transport of CAAC, general aviation has shown five characteristics in the prevention and control of the epidemic: general aviation enterprises, regardless of remuneration and conditions, have taken the initiative and worked in unison to participate in the prevention and control of the epidemic; civil aviation entities have made active coordination, and aligned with local joint prevention and control mechanisms; the whole industry has focused on providing general aviation enterprises with preferential oil price, building a "general aviation standby and duty information platform", and providing free insurance, etc.; many new application scenarios have been developed in general aviation such as RPAS; information technology has distinguished itself, such as the “general aviation meteorological service platform for epidemic prevention and control” developed by the Central Southern Regional Administration of CAAC has achieved practical results.

Next, CAAC will give full play to the incentive role of financial support policies; CAAC will continue to give full play to the overall coordination role of the joint prevention and control mechanism, unblocking the information channels, ensuring tasks carried out by general aviation enterprises will be safe, smooth and efficient; the examination and approval procedures will be simplified and the services optimized so as to help the resumption of work and production; support will be offered to local governments to buy general aviation services, and the emergency rescue mechanism will be further established and improved to support the emergency response across China.

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