From the Press Trust of India:

China's civil aviation sector experienced a double-digit growth in the first half of the year in both traffic and revenues despite soaring oil prices.

Passengers carried by Chinese airlines rose 16.7 per cent in the first half of 2007 over the same period last year to 86.7 million, the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) said.

China's domestic passenger volume increased by 16.2 per cent to 78.8 million while international passengers volume reached 7.9 million, up 21.8 per cent.

For comparison, this nice air traffic summary of Bureau of Transportaion Statistics data shows there were 271 Million domestic passengers in the US in only the first five months of 2007 - that adds up to over 18 times more air trips per capita!

Cargo traffic carried by Chinese airlines rose 15.3 per cent to 1.83 million tonnes with domestic cargo growing by 11.3 per cent to 1.32 million tonnes and that for international routes of 508,000 tonnes, up 27.2 per cent.

During the period, revenues generated by China's civil aviation sector rose 18.3 per cent to 121.8 billion yuan (16.06 billion US dollars) while the sector also turned profitable in the first half with net profit reaching 4.62 billion yuan, up 4.97 billion yuan from the same period last year....

Despite record fuel costs, the industry went from a loss to a 4% profit margin in one year.

Registered airplanes in the civil aviation sector in China totaled 1,054 at the end of June, an increase of 56 over six months ago, the civil aviation regulator said. [The number of aircraft has therefore been increasing at a 12% annual rate! -ed.]

People's Daily Online also reports that flights between the US and China on Korean Airlines have increased 55% in the first half of 2007 over the same period last year!

Some of the bottlenecks for all this growth will be safety, airport infrastructure and airspace control issues.  All of this rapid growth is bound to put heavy pressure on China's airports.  Gulf News reports that the Chinese government is already clamping down to deal with the strain.

China's aviation authority, citing safety concerns, has announced plans to scale back flights at overstretched Beijing airport and a ban on the founding of new airlines before 2010.

... "Along with the rapid development of the industry have come ever-more urgent problems with the supply of technical personnel, air space resources, and airport safety guarantees," said the notice, viewed on the CAAC website last Thursday.

Speaking of safety, Breitbart reports that a China Airlines flight from Taiwan to Japan has burst into flames after skidding during landing, but fortunately, everyone got off ok.

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Fight arrivals and departures at Beijing Capital Airport will be restricted to 1,050 per day, or 58 per hour, by the end of October, and fall further to 1,000 per day, or 55 per hour, by the end of March 2008, the notice said.

China's three biggest carriers, Air China, China Eastern and China Southern, will be required to cut a total of 336 daily flights, the notice said.

Beijing is already the world's ninth busiest airport by number of passengers handled, and is bracing for a jump in traffic around the time of the Olympics.