Passenger transport service at Baiyun Airport, one of China's busiest airports based in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, has been recovering rapidly from SARS as a growing number of people travel to the southern Chinese province for business or tourism purposes.

Airport authorities said that the daily flow of passengers at the airport has remained over 50,000 in the past days.

A total of 5,377 domestic air flights with 586,000 passengers were handled in July, almost the same number as in July last year.

It is predicted that it will take just some more days for the flow of air passengers to exceed that of the same period last year.

But only about 80 percent of the passengers on international flights has been recovered, compared to the figure of last year, said the airport sources.

Guangdong was one of the worst-hit areas by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in China. The World Health Organization issued an advisory against travel to Guangdong on April 2 but lifted the advisory on May 23.

Fear of spreading SARS caused a number of sectors to lose business, including air transport, catering and commerce.

(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2003)