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)