China's air traffic up during Spring Festival holiday

BEIJING - China's airlines operated over 60,000 flights during the week-long Spring Festival holiday travel season, up 7.8 percent from last year, according to an article posted on the official website of the Ministry of Transport on Wednesday.

Airlines in China carried more than 1.35 million passengers each on Feb 23 and Feb 24, hitting an all-time daily high during the Spring Festival travel season.

Chinese passengers made 8.25 million trips by air during the week-long holiday, up 7.3 percent year on year, the article said, quoting data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

The number is about 85 percent of railway trips nationwide during the Spring Festival holiday travel season. Traffic authorities estimated Tuesday that about 9.7 million trips were made by train during the holiday.

Back in 2008, air passenger traffic was only about one-ninth of railway passenger traffic during the Spring Festival travel season, but today more Chinese people can afford air travel.

According to data provided by the Beijing Capital International Airport, some 1.6 million passengers traveled via the airport during the seven-day holiday, up 7.14 percent from the previous year.

Over 10,540 aircraft departed from or arrived at the airport over the past week, up 6.69 percent over the previous year.

On Wednesday, the first working day after the holiday, some 1,675 aircraft will depart or arrive at Beijing Capital Airport.

The Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, which fell on Feb 19 this year, is traditionally a time for family reunions.

Every year, tens of millions of Chinese return to the cities where they work or attend school after reuniting with family during the week-long Spring Festival holiday.

The pre- and post-holiday travel rush known as "chunyun" in Chinese has been called the world's largest human migration.