CAAC held its monthly press briefing on October 17. Chiefs from relevant CAAC departments and bureaus released information on subjects such as operation safety during the first three quarters this year. Reporters from over 20 press agencies including Xinhua News Agency, the People’s Daily, CCTV, Bloomberg, etc., attended the event.

In the first three quarters this year, civil aviation operation remained safe and stable. According to Tang Weibin, Director General of CAAC’s Office of Aviation Safety, from January to September, air transport amounted to 7.862 million hours of flight, general aviation reached 593,000 hours of flight, increasing by 11.4% and 2.7% respectively compared with last year. Up to now, China’s civil aviation industry has realized continuous and safe transport flights for 85 consecutive months and over 54 million hours, which is the best safety record in history.

In the first three quarters, civil aviation industry kept a momentum of rapid development as expected while the structure of development changed somehow. According to Ji Yuan, Deputy Director General of CAAC’s Department of Development Planning, the total air transport turnover, passengers carried and cargo & mail carried in this period were 79.67 billion ton-km, 409 million persons, and 5.096 million tons, with a year-on-year growth of 12.3%, 12.5% and 6.4% respectively, which were 0.5, 1.7 and 1.4 percentage points higher than the planned growth rates. These figures fall within the expectation. The total air transport turnover of domestic air routes was 51.23 billion ton-km with a year-on-year growth of 11.6%; the total air transport of international air routes was 28.43 billion ton-km with a year-on-year growth of 13.5%. The difference between the two growth rates has narrowed.

As for passenger transport, in the first three quarters, domestic air routes transported 410 million passengers with a year-on-year growth of 13.3%. International air routes transported 41.47 million passengers with a year-on-year growth of 5.2%. The former growth rate was 8.1 percentage points higher than the latter, while the number of last year was 17.1 percentage points lower than the latter one. As for cargo transport, with a steady increase of import and export, during the first three quarters, international air routes transported 1.586 million tons of cargo and mail with a year-on-year growth of 14.3%, showing a rapid growing momentum, while domestic air routes only saw a growth of 3.2%. The former growth rate was 11.1 percentage points higher than the latter one, while the number of last year was 2.8 percentage points lower than the latter.

In the meantime, the number of civil aviation flights reached a record high. According to Zhang Chunzhi, Party Secretary of CAAC’s Operation Monitoring Center, during the first three quarters, the number of various flights amounted to 3,783,743, which means 13,860 per day with a year-on-year growth of 8.61%. On September 29, the number reached an all-time high, 15,323 flights. Since the beginning of this year, with a significant increase in the number of flights, bad weather conditions such as thunderstorms and dense fog, and emerging UAVs, the normal operation of flights has been severely challenged. Weather condition constitutes the major reason for flight delay, accounting for 53.51% of all delays.

Among the airlines ranking top 10 in amounts of flights and passengers carried for the first three quarters, the top three were Tianjin Airlines, Sichuan Airlines and China Southern Airlines, with regularity rates of 72.15%, 68.82% and 68.72% respectively. Among the top 10 airports in terms of aircraft movements and those with passenger traffic of over 30 million, the three airports which excelled in clearance were Xi’an Airport, Chongqing Airport and Kunming Airport with clearance rates of 84.59%, 83.64% and 83.4% respectively. Zhang Chunzhi said civil aviation support entities will take advantage of good weather conditions in the fourth quarter, make efforts to control the total capacity, collaborate with each other and serve the overall interests, and do a good job in ensuring flight regularity.