Airports owned by the Beijing-based Capital Airports Holding Company (CAH) saw a 17 percent rise in passenger traffic to 67.61 million in the first half of 2010 from a year ago, said the company Thursday.

Further, the number of aircraft takeoffs and landings in the first six months of this year rose 15 percent year-on-year to 610,000, while cargo and mail volume grew 17 percent from the same period last year to total 1.11 million tonnes, said Dong Zhiyi, general manager of the CAH.

Total assets of the company reached 126.1 billion yuan (18.6 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half, while operating revenues surged 23.5 percent to 10.05 billion yuan, said Dong.

The CAH reported 500 million yuan in profits in the first half of the year, compared with a 290 million yuan loss in the same period last year.

The CAH is a state-owned enterprise under the Civil Aviation Administration of China, which owns more than 30 airports in China' s nine provincial regions, including the Beijing Capital International Airport(BCIA), which ranked second in the world in passenger volume in the first half of the year.

The BCIA witnessed a 13.2 percent year on year surge in passenger traffic to 35 million in the Jan. to June period, according to Dong.