China's flight punctuality rate continued to drop in 2014 with growing air traffic, according to the latest report released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China Tuesday.
Air traffic at China's airports increased by 10.8 percent in 2014, with up to 7.5 million inbound and outbound flights. Airports dealt with an average of more than 10,000 flights every day.
China's flight punctuality rate has been dropping since 2012 and it dropped to 68.4 percent in 2014. The main reasons include airline management, weather conditions and air traffic control.
About 36 percent of the flights were delayed within 30 minutes and 2.9 percent were delayed more than four hours.
July and August have the lowest punctuality rates because of poor weather.
The three airlines with the highest punctuality rate in 2014 are Air China, China Southern Airlines and Sichuan Airlines, according to the report.
Wang Jiangmin, a civil aviation expert, told the Global Times that one of the main reasons for the drop in punctuality was the development of the domestic aviation market being much faster than the development of its resources such as airport management and related facilities.
He said building new airports, opening more airspace and applying computerized air traffic control to all cities could help ease air traffic, but it would take time to reap the benefits.
