The aviation industry in China registered 9.5 billion tonne-kilometers in total traffic volume in August alone, representing an increase of 9.4%; in January-August, the total traffic volume grew by 12.3% to 70.38 billion tonne-kilometers, said Civil Aviation Administration of China at a press conference on September 18.
Driven by the summer peak travel season, the passenger traffic of China’s airlines maintained healthy growth in August. Passenger traffic increased 8.7% to reach a record high of 50.464 million, exceeding the 50-million mark for the first time. The passenger traffic volume of domestic routes was 45.238 million, an increase of 9.5%; and the traffic volume of international routes was 5.227 million, an increase of 2.6%. From January to August, a total of 363 million passengers were handled, up 12.6% year on year. Of which, the number of passengers carried by domestic routes rose 13.5% to 326 million and that of international routes was up by 5.0% to 36.922 million.
The cargo traffic in August also performed well, having completed 571,000 tonne-kilometers in the month, an increase of 7.2% from the same period last year. In January-August, the cargo and mail volume increased by 6.3% to 4.452 million, of which the cargo and mail volume of domestic routes was 3.059 million tonne-kilometers, up 3.2%; and that of international routes was 1.393 million tonne-kilometers, up 13.7%.
Air traffic growth in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan routes was also satisfactory, with the total traffic volume grew by 12.5%, passenger traffic by 11.2% and the cargo and mail volume by 20.7%, up 25, 22.1 and 27.8 percentage points respectively during the same period last year. The total air transportation turnover and passenger traffic of the Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan routes have resumed double-digit growth since 2015. Hong Kong routes grew 6.5%, Macau routes grew 23.8% and Taiwan routes grew 12.4%.
