The average flight on-time rate of airlines in China stood at 82.58 percent in February, 0.16 percent higher than last year's same period, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

The industry watchdog ascribed 46 percent of the flight delays to airline reasons and 24.8 percent to poor weather.

Chinese airlines handled 123,332 flights in February, 6,423 more than the number in January.

According to the CAAC, flight passengers rose 9.8 percent year-on-year in February to 15.03 million. Freight and mail volume increased 5 percent to 255,828 tonnes.

Official figures showed that the annual flights in China rose from 896,000 in 2003 to 1.62 million in 2007, up more than 15 percent year-on-year. However, flight delay has also become a long-time headache for passengers in the country.

The new version of flights punctuality measuring method came into effect on March 30 to replace the old version compiled in 2003, in a bid to improve the accuracy and authenticity of the statistics.

The compilation of the new version of measuring method was on the basis of a research since the end of 2006 on the lessons accumulated by major domestic airlines and air traffic management bureaus nationwide.

The CAAC also vowed in January to take various measures to reduce flight delays and improve the airline services this year.