The General Administration of Civil Aviation (CAAC) said on Friday that 584 flights scheduled to leave Beijing's Capital Airport will be cancelled between July 15 and September 25.

The cancellations are for the sake of flight safety and the normal operation of airports across the country, according to a CAAC statement.

The 584 flights are mostly between 5 PM and 8 PM, the period when thunderstorms are most likely to occur in Beijing.

According to meteorological experts, thunderstorms, a major cause of flight delays in the summer, are predicted to be more frequent in the country this year than ever before.

One-fourth of the country's total flights go through Beijing's airport. The CAAC was concerned that many flights would be delayed this summer, affecting flights at other airports. Delayed flights have sparked many complaints since the end of June.

"Because of thunderstorms in Beijing, our flight from Changzhou in East China's Jiangsu Province took us 12 hours to get to Beijing, even longer than a train trip," said Ni Ronghui, 34, who took her son and parents to travel in Beijing.

The flight she took on June 30 was first forced to land in Zhengzhou of Henan Province in Central China because of a thunderstorm in Beijing.

The family was kept waiting on the plane for more than 4 hours at midnight, which she said was hot and suffocating, and finally arrived in Beijing at 4 am on July 1.

Having missed their planned night in a hotel, the family had to begin their travel in Beijing listless after a sleepless night, Ni said. A recent survey showed passenger complaints about flight delays have accounted for at least 60 percent of the total complaints received.

In order to avoid such inconvenience for passengers and to guarantee flight safety, the administration decided to cancel the flights of four airlines including Air China, China Eastern, China Southern and Hainan Airlines.

Those cities affected include Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang Province, Xi'an in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Nanjing in Jiangsu Province, Harbin in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Qingdao and Yantai in east China's Shandong Province, and Haikou in south China's Hainan Province.

The CAAC has urged the four airlines to inform customers who have bought tickets and enable them to either change their flights or get a refund.

(China Daily July 8, 2006)