Aviation authorities will ground hundreds of domestic passenger
flights to make air travel in China safer and more comfortable.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced
yesterday that it will cut 336 flights to and from Beijing between
this month and October to "prevent the industry from developing too
fast".
The first batch of 48 flights was ordered to cease operations
yesterday, including 10 from Air China, 10 from China Eastern and
10 from China Southern.
Most of the cancelled flights operated during the peak hours of
the day, from 7:30-9?AM and 2-4 PM.
The CAAC wants to reduce the amount of daily aircraft traffic at
Beijing Capital International Airport to 1,050 flights from 1,100
by the end of October, it said.
The authorities will continue to reduce flights until next
March, when the amount of air traffic at the capital airport is
expected to drop to 1,000 flights per day, it said.
The measures will not influence any foreign airlines, a CAAC
official said.
Other control measures include a ban on applications for new
airlines before 2010, preventing pilots from flying overtime and
ordering airlines not to expand their fleets too quickly when they
do not have enough pilots.
But the administration will support the establishment of new
cargo airlines that mainly rely on foreign pilots and promise to
operate at night, as well as new passenger airlines that use
domestically made aircraft and register to fly in China's western
and northeastern areas.
The measures follow an almost 20 percent year-on-year growth in
China's air traffic, according to first-half figures for this
year.
"It is the fastest growth rate in the past decade, except for
the record in 2004, which was high because of the low air traffic
throughput in 2003 when China experienced the SARS outbreak," Li
Xiaojin, a professor with the Tianjin-based Civil Aviation
University of China, told China Daily yesterday.
Passenger traffic on Chinese airlines has grown annually by an
average 16 percent in the past decade.
However, the fast development of the aviation sector has brought
with it a number of problems, including "a shortage of
professionals, under-capacity of airports, and limited airspace",
the CAAC said.
These issues demonstrate the need for China to improve its
management and safety of the aviation sector, Li Xiaojin said.
To ensure flight safety, the CAAC must enhance its management
capabilities in areas such as air traffic control, airports,
airlines, aviation fuel supply, ground service and aircraft
maintenance, he said.
"But that process takes a long time. So the current measure of
reducing operations and cooling down the growth rate is a good and
timely solution," he said.
Beijing Capital International Airport is the country's busiest
airport and ranks as the world's ninth busiest with 48.7 million
passenger movements last year.
As the country's major gateway, the capital airport is under
increasing pressure. Its two terminals and two runways were
designed to handle only 35 million passengers a year.
To keep up with the demand and guarantee that the 2008 Olympic
Games are a success, the capital airport has spent US$2.2 billion
on a third terminal and runway, which are expected to open next
year bringing its capacity up to 60 million passengers
annually.
(China Daily August 16, 2007)
