CAAC: Air Passenger Numbers Up 9.2% in July

China's civil aviation industry achieved a total turnover volume of 7.39 billion tonne-kilometers in July 2015, a year-on-year growth of 12.5%, according to statistics released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) on Tuesday.

The monthly traffic statistics shows that as many as 39.15 million people traveled by air during the month, with a year-on-year growth of 9.2%. The number of passengers travelling on domestic and international flights increased 7.6% and 26.7% respectively to 35.5 million and 3.65 million, while those travelling on Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan routes declined 1.7% from a year earlier to 870,000.

According to statistics, Chinese airlines handled 487,200 tonnes of cargo and mail in July, up 6.3% year on year. Cargo traffic registered 7.3% growth on domestic routes and 4.1% growth on international routes, with 4.7% fall on Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan routes.

The passenger load factor increased 1.1 percentage points over last year to 83.3% and the freight load factor rose 0.2 percentage points to 72.3%.

The aircraft utilization rate for July averaged 9.9 hours per day, including 10 hours per day for medium and large aircraft and 6.9 hours per day for small aircraft.

In the first seven months of 2015, Chinese carriers achieved 248.49 million passengers, up 11.9% over a year earlier.