Tardy airlines may be clipped by State organ

Flights that have been delayed for more than four hours and trigger protests from passengers will be canceled and those responsible for the lengthy delays - which can include airlines and traffic controllers - will be banned from flying for a season, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China on Thursday as quoted by the Beijing-based The Mirror.

The administration will launch a special campaign in the latter half of the year aimed at reducing flight delays and it will give harsher punishments to those responsible for flight delays, it said.

The administration will warn domestic airlines whose rates of punctuality are below 50 percent and rank among the last 20, it said.

Domestic flights completed 3.3 million hours of flights during the first half of the year without any incident, according to the administration.