On January 9, VariFlight, China's leading flight status service provider, and the Civil Aviation Big Data Research Center published the Chinese Airports Development Report for 2016.

The number of departure flights handled at domestic airports was 3.90 million in 2016, up 9.5% year on year. All the monthly departure flights were more than the same period of the previous year. The flights registered a record increase of 12.8% in November 2016. Domestic airports handled the most departure flights in July and August, with 345,000 and 355,000 respectively, followed by 343,000 in October. The departure flights increased significantly in the second half of the year, compared with the first half of year.

In terms of punctuality rate, Chinese airports reported an on-time departure performance of 70.4% in 2016, with an average delay time of 33 minutes, 6 minutes shorter than the previous year. The departure on-time rate was improved slightly.

The best on-time departure rate was reported in March, with 77.0% of flights departing on time, and the average delay time for the month was 27 minutes. The worst on-time departure performance occurred in July, with only 62.3% of flights departing on time, and the average delay was 42 minutes.

According to the passenger throughput statistics by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) in 2015, the airports in the Chinese mainland were divided into major airports with more than 10 million passengers, mid-sized airports with more than 2 million passengers, and smaller airports with less than 2 million passengers. Chinese major airports handled 2.83 million departure flights, accounting for 73% of the total departure flights. The top three major airports with the best on-time performance were Xi'an Xianyang International Airport (82.3%), Harbin Taiping International Airport (79.6%) and Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport (78.8%). The three major airports with the worst on-time performance were Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport (57.2%), Nanjing Lukou International Airport (56.5%) and Shanghai Pudong International Airport (78.8%), which saw the longest average delay time among the major airports. Xi'an Xianyang International Airport saw an average delay time of 23 minutes, compared with 48 minutes at Shanghai Pudong International Airport.

The number of departure flights was 621,000 at the mid-sized airports, accounting for 16% of the total departure flights. The top three mid-sized airports with the best on-time performance were Xining Caojiabao International Airport (86.0%), Yinchuan Hedong International Airport (83.5%) and Taiyuan Wuxu International Airport (81.9%).

According to the CAAC's regulations, if an airport's monthly on-time departure rate was below 75% and ranked one of the last three places will not be allowed to apply for adding flights, charter flights or launching new services within two months. In December 2016, the CAAC published the announcement on implementing flight regularity management measures, Shanghai Pudong failed to meet the requirements for nine consecutive months from March to November and Shanghai Hongqiao failed to meet the requirements for two months in October and November, as a result, the two airports remained banned from adding flights, charter services or applying new services.

Data shows the two Shanghai airports handled 164 million passengers in 2016, including 65.98 million from Shanghai Pudong and 40.45 million from Shanghai Hongqiao, an increase of 7.31% year on year. Shanghai has become the fifth city in the world with an annual passenger throughput of over 100 million, following London, New York, Tokyo and Atlantic.

A Satellite Terminal is under construction at Shanghai Pudong to improve the overall operation capability of the airport. It is learned that the Satellite Terminal will have 83 departure gates, and 86-125 standing stands and more. The Satellite Terminal is designed to handle 38 million passengers annually. Shanghai Pudong will be able to handle 80 million passengers annually after the Satellite Terminal completes in 2019.