In 2006, the first year to implement the "11th Five-Year Plan", China civil aviation saw a fairly good start, continued its fast developing momentum that had been gained at the end of the "10th Five-Year Plan" and achieved great success in all aspects of its work.

    -- Air transport growing rapidly 

     The total air traffic, passenger traffic and cargo and mail traffic carried by the whole industry in the whole year hit 30.58 billion ton-km, 159.678 million people and 3.493 million tons, increasing by 17.0%, 15.5% and 13.9% respectively over that of the previous year. All the China's civil airports open to traffic handled a total of 332 million passengers, a 16.7% increase over that of the previous year and 7.532 million tons of cargo and mail, a 19.0% increase. The 7 airports, which handled more than 10 million passengers each, were the Airports of Beijing, Shanghai Pudong, Guangzhou, Shanghai Hongqiao, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Kunming, with Beijing Capital Airport handling 48.748 million passengers and becoming one of the ten leading airports in the world. The total number of regular flight routes reached 1 336 at the end of the year, covering a route mileage of 2.1135 million kms (unrepeated calculation). These flights served 140 cities at home (Hong Kong and Macao not included) and 91 cities in 42 foreign countries, and 37 mainland cities had air connections with Hong Kong and 5 with Macao. By the end of the year, 135 aircraft had been added, bringing to 998 in total the fleet of transport aircraft for the whole industry. The average daily utilization of registered aircraft was 9.48 hours, an increase of 0.1 hour over that of the previous year, the average regular flight passenger load factor was 73.5% and that of flight load factor was 65.7%, representing increases of 2.0% and 0.7% respectively.

    -- General aviation growing stably  

    General aviation of the whole industry completed 91 901 operation hours, increasing by 8.3% against that of the previous year, of which, 38 316 hours were completed for industrial operations, 27 675 for agricultural and forest operations, and 25 910 for other operations, increasing by 4.9%, 8.8% and 13.1% respectively.

    -- Economic profits increasing significantly
     According to the statistics bulletin, the accumulated revenue realized from the principal business of the industry was 227.56 billion yuan with a total profit of 6.86 billion yuan, increasing by 4.22 billion yuan against that of the previous year. To be more exact, the revenue from the principal business of airlines was 158.9 billion yuan with a total profit of 2.38 billion yuan and that from the principal business of airports was 20.66 billion yuan with a total profit of 3.08 billion yuan, increasing by 3.73 billion yuan and 600 million yuan respectively over those of the previous year, and the revenue from the principal business of other enterprises was 48 billion yuan with a total profit of 1.4 billion, decreasing by 110 million yuan against that of the previous year. The passenger-km revenue of airlines was 0.47 yuan, increasing by 1.19% against that of the previous year, of which, revenues from mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and international routes were 0.59 yuan, 0.69 yuan, 0.59 yuan and 0.57 yuan respectively, increasing by 1.03%, 0.47% and 2.63% respectively for the mainland, Macao and international routes and decreasing by 5.18% for Hong Kong routes.

    -- Safety and security year realized for air transport

    The whole industry firmly adhered to the policy of "Safety First, Prevention Foremost and Comprehensive Management", earnestly carried out the system of making government accountable for safety supervision and enterprises and institutions for their own safety, maintained effective supervision, continued the specific rectification, energetically promoted safety audit, actively carried forward the construction of safety management system (SMS), quickened the construction of safety information system, strengthened the administration of flight personnel and enhanced the aviation security management, which facilitated the stableness of safety situation. The whole industry saw no flight accidents or aviation security accidents. From Nov. 22, 2004 to the end of 2006, the whole industry experienced safe flights for 25 months, creating a new record of 6.16 million continuous hours of safe flights. The flight incident rate per 10 000 hours was 0.34 for the whole year, decreasing by 0.05 against that of the previous year and 12 airlines such as Xiamen had no flight incidents.

    -- Services improved

    E-tickets were greatly popularized and the problem concerning vouchers used for e-ticket reimbursement was solved and by the end of 2006, more than 80% air tickets issued were e-tickets. Complaints concerning services were earnestly handled, and the rate of passenger complaint was 2 per million for the whole year, 23% less than that of last year. The flight regularity was stressed and the average rate of flight regularity for the whole industry was 81.48%. The day-to-day work of CAAC Leading Group for coordination with the Olympic Games progressed smoothly, the Capital International Airport coordinating committee and office for Beijing Olympic Games were set up and the preview and rehearsal of the welcoming activities were conducted.

    -- Infrastructure construction making new progress

    The accumulated fixed asset investment of the whole industry was 31.4 billion yuan for the whole year. The building of the 5 new airports of Wenshan, Linzhi, Narati, Koramay, and Baise (for military-civilian use) was completed, and by the end of the year, there were already 147 civil airports. 20.1 billion yuan of accumulated investment was used for the expansion of the Capital Airport, the structure of T3 terminal building was completed and the pavement of the airfield area was basically completed. The expansions of the airports of Shanghai Pudong, Tianjin Binhai and Hohhot Baita proceeded smoothly. The reconstruction and expansion projects of the main and alternate airports used for A380 and Olympic Games were carried out on the whole. The preparation projects for Kunming New Airport, Urumqi Diwopu Airport and the expansion of Xi'an Xianyang Airport progressed as scheduled. The projects of VHF remote control communication system for the three big regional ATC centers of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou were completed and put into operation. The reconstruction of Beijing-Xiamen air route and Shanghai-Xi'an-Chengdu- Kunming air route drew to its end. The construction of civil aviation operational management system and meteorological system were started.

    -- Reform and opening to the outside world continuing

    "CAAC Guidelines on Deepening the Civil Aviation Reform" and "the Implementation Plan" were put forward after studies, in which, the guiding ideology, objective principles and basic tasks were defined. The reform plan for ATC system was preliminarily determined. The main responsibilities and establishment of some departments of CAAC were adjusted. China Civil Airport Association, China Civil Aviation Maintenance Association and Civil Aviation Science Popularization Funds were registered and established. The certification of the air transport sales agencies was handed over to China Air Transport Association. Wuhan was chosen as an experiment for the comprehensive reform on air transport, whose domestic air transport market was opened, allowing airlines to set up branches on their own in Wuhan and a registration system was adopted with regard to air routes, flights and schedules, etc.. As a result of actively developing the air transport bilateral relationship, China had signed a total of 106 bilateral air transport agreements with other countries by the end of 2006, of which, 13 were initialed. In order to give impetus to the cooperation in regional air transport, discussions were initiated on regional air transport agreement between China and ASEAN. We actively participated in ICAO multilateral activities. The thirty-year-long problem of the airspace structure over South China Sea with Vietnam was solved and Sanya flight information region was established. The air transport market was opened wider to the outside world and the examination and approval was relaxed for foreign airlines to operate their added flights and charter flights to the Central and Western parts of China. Passenger transport service was opened between Chengdu and Amsterdam－the first one between Southwest region of China and Europe. Domestic airlines were encouraged to open up long-range air routes to developing countries, and the direct air service between China and Brazil was started. The construction of international air hubs was strengthened and air transport facilitation pushed forward. New air transport memorandums were signed with the governments of Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions to add destinations and to arrange transport capacities.

    -- New progress made in law system construction and in science, technology and education

     Important progress was made in the revision of "Law on Civil Aviation" and 17 departmental regulations were issued. The study of the Convention on International Civil Aviation was strengthened and seminars were held on international civil aviation law. The compiling of the Manual on Administrative Enforcement for China Civil Aviation Supervisors was completed so that a comprehensive and workable legal instrument was provided in this regard. The study on the policies for anti-monopoly and fair competition in civil aviation industry was continued.  The knowledge of laws was disseminated vigorously. The building of industrialization base of science and technology for civil aviation proceeded smoothly. The project of "New Generation of National ATC System" was listed in the national 863 plan, as the first major project of science and technology for civil aviation approved at the national level. The evaluation and examination mechanism for science and technology awards was improved and 46 projects were given prizes. "Commanding and Dispatching System for Civil Airport Operations" won the second prize of 2006 National Science, Technology and Progress Award. Construction plan for civil aviation comprehensive public information platform initially took shape after studies. Strategic research by civil aviation on Olympic Games was organized and completed. China Civil Aviation Safety College was founded and the first training class for senior safety management personnel was held. The construction of civil aviation colleges was strengthened; Flight College was added as one which could confer master degrees and China Civil Aviation College changed its name into Civil Aviation University of China. Training of skilled personnel was strengthened and the appraisal of professional skills continued.

    The year of 2007 is an important year to put into practice even further the scientific outlook on development and actively push on the construction of harmonized civil aviation. The Party Committee of CAAC has decided that in 2007, CAAC will follow the guideline of Deng Xiaoping theory and the important thought of "Three Represents", earnestly carry out the spirit of the Party's 16th National Congress, its 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Plenary Sessions and the Economic Conference of the CPC Central Committee, comprehensively implement scientific outlook on development and firmly adhere to the policy of "Safety First, Prevention Foremost and Comprehensive Management", make efforts to promote safety operation, enhance macro control and change growth formula, push forward reform and innovation and upgrade service quality, actively construct a harmonious civil aviation and realistically develop civil aviation in a scientific way so as to strive for a better and faster development of civil aviation.

    The main targets for the civil aviation in 2007 are: the whole industry will carry a total air traffic of 34.8 billion ton-km, 187 million passengers and 3.85 million tons of cargo and mail, representing increases of 15%, 16%, and 12% respectively over those in 2006. The operation hours of general aviation will see an increase of about 10% over that of the previous year. The total investment in fixed assets will be 26 billion yuan.

    In 2007, the main targets for safety are: to stop major transport flight accidents, to prevent hijacks or aircraft bombing on the premise that the safety of passengers and airplanes are ensured, to prevent major general aviation accidents, major ground accidents and extraordinary big aircraft maintenance accidents and to make the rate of transport flight incident per 10000 hours below 0.7.