A recovery in demand propelled China's aviation industry to record 9.39 billion yuan (US$1.37 billion) in net income in the first four months of this year - a huge improvement considering the profit for the whole of last year, the industry regulator has said.

The industry's profit for the whole of 2009 was 12.2 billion yuan while it lost 38.2 billion yuan in 2008, said Li Jiaxiang, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Domestic carriers earned 6.92 billion yuan through April, accounting for 73.7 percent of the whole industry's profit, and airports earned 1.79 billion yuan. Last year, the airlines earned a combined 7.4 billion yuan.

"The government's efforts to boost domestic demand and encourage Chinese companies to develop overseas helped the industry maintain a rapid development," Li said at a forum in Beijing on Wednesday.

In the January-April period, passenger volume expanded 16.1 percent from a year earlier, and cargo volume jumped 42.2 percent.