Chinese Airlines More Punctual In First Half of Year

Almost 80% of Chinese airlines’ flights left the country’s airports for domestic destinations on time in the first six months of the year, an increase of just over 8 percentage points year-on-year, the aviation watchdog said.

While Chinese carriers missed the Civil Aviation Administration of China’s (CAAC’s) on-time rate target of 75% last year by almost 4 percentage points, they seem to be on track to get closer this year, with a first-half figure of 79.52%.

However, the on-time rate has traditionally fallen sharply in the summer, as seasonal rainfall can cause the rate to plummet.

Last month, 78.32% of flights departed on time, lower than the six-month average, mainly resulting from bad weather conditions, according to the CAAC.

However this was significantly higher than the rate in June 2017, which had dropped by around 15 percentage points from the month before to 57.23%.

The punctuality rate might not hold up so well this month. Earlier in July, Typhoon Maria landed in the Fujian-Zhejiang region, resulting in the cancellation of more than 400 flights in the Fuzhou, Wenzhou and Xiamen airports. July 2017 saw the weakest monthly on-time rate of the year, at 50.76%.

The CAAC has warned of more potential delays nationwide through August due to poor weather.

The watchdog has not yet released airline-specific data for June, but the May figures, released on June 25, show that all of the country’s “Big Four” airlines surpassed the 75% target.

China Eastern and China Southern were ranked second and third respectively in a list of 10 major Chinese airlines provided by the CAAC, with punctuality rates of 78.97 % and 78.23 % for May. Air China, China’s largest airline, came in fifth place on the list, with a rate of 77.44 %.

Hainan Airlines, subsidiary of embattled conglomerate HNA Group Co. Ltd., had the lowest on-time rate of the “Big Four” at 75.41%, leaving it in seventh place in the list.