Beijing aims for aviation expansion

China’s civil aviation regulator said yesterday that the country aimed to expand its fixed-asset investment in the civil aviation sector to 85 billion yuan (US$12.41 billion) in 2019.

This was compared with 81 billion yuan made in 2018, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Total transport turnover of the country’s civil aviation industry was expected to rise 11.8 percent year on year to 136 billion ton-kilometers in 2019, Feng Zhenglin, head of the CAAC told a work conference.

Passenger transport volume and cargo and mail transport volume are likely to increase 11 percent and 5.7 percent respectively this year, according to the CAAC.

Feng said the civil aviation industry had made remarkable achievements last year, with the total transport turnover up 11.4 percent year on year to 120.64 billion ton-kilometers.

In 2018, 167 new international flight routes were launched, with 105 of them linking domestic cities with countries along the Belt and Road, taking number of China’s total flight routes to 4,206.