Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport records breaking travel rush

Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, in Guangzhou of Guangdong province, recorded its busiest day ever during the annual Spring Festival travel rush, handling 277,600 passenger trips on Saturday, with 1,676 take-offs and landings.

The figures mark year-on-year increases of 7.37 percent in passenger traffic and 9.12 percent in flight movements, according to the airport authority.

Cargo and mail volumes also rose, reaching 4,154.14 metric tons on the same day, up 9.1 percent compared to a year earlier, according to a statement from the airport.

Over the first 20 days of the Spring Festival travel period, which began on Feb 2, the airport processed 5.2785 million passenger trips. It is the first airport in China to exceed five million passengers during this year's holiday rush.

Traffic has remained consistently high throughout the period, it said. The airport handled more than 260,000 passenger trips for 11 consecutive days between Feb 5 and 15. Daily volumes surpassed 270,000 for three straight days from Feb 11 to 13.

The post-festival return peak has also scaled new heights, as the daily passenger volume hit 275,500 on Feb 20 and 277,600 on Feb 21, successively breaking the airport's single-day passenger flow record for the Spring Festival travel rush, it said.

Passenger flow remained at an elevated level on Sunday and Monday, it added.

The Spring Festival holiday ended on Monday.