Recently, CAAC issued Statistical Bulletin of Civil Aviation Industry Development in 2018 (hereinafter referred to as the Statistical Bulletin), which summarized Chinese civil aviation development in 2018 from 12 aspects including transport aviation, general aviation, transport profit and economic profit, education and technological innovation, etc.

According to the Statistical Bulletin, the civil aviation industry in China registered a total traffic of 120.635 billion ton-km, passenger throughput, 1071.232 billion person-km and cargo and mail turnover, 26.25 billion ton-km, up by 11.4%, 12.6% and 7.8% respectively over last year. Passenger traffic reached 611.73 million, 10.9% higher than last year and the amount of cargo and mail handled stood at 7.38 million tons, 4.6% higher over a year ago. Transport airlines in the industry completed 11.53 million hours of transport flight and 4.69 million transport movements in total, representing an increase of 8.9% and 7.6% respectively compared with the previous year.

By the end of 2018, there were in total 60 transport airlines, 3639 transport aircraft and 4945 scheduled routes connecting 230 domestic destinations (excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) and 165 international destinations in 65 countries. A total of 235 certified airports handled 1.265 billion passengers in 2018, up by 10.2% over last year, and completed 11.0883 million movements, 8.2% higher than a year ago. Average daily utilization of registered transport aircraft stood at 9.36 hours and average passenger load factor of scheduled flights, 83.2%, realizing a revenue of 1.01425 trillion yuan, up by 18.5% over last year.

In terms of general aviation, 2018 witnessed a total of 937.1 thousand hours of production flight by 2495 registered aircraft of 422 general aviation enterprises, representing an increase of 11.9% over last year. Development of unmanned aircraft was gaining speed as by the end of 2018, the number of valid licenses of UAS pilots registered 44573, the number of unmanned aircraft 287 thousand and hours of commercial flights by unmanned aircraft 370 thousand.

As the traffic volume constantly increased, safety management and operation efficiency of civil aviation continuously improved. By the end of 2018, transport aviation realized safe operation for 100 consecutive months, or 68.36 million hours, and a record of zero aviation accident with human responsibility for 16 years and 8 months. In 2018, average flight regularity rate of passenger transport airlines nationwide stood at 80.13% with average flight delay being reduced by 9 minutes to 15 minutes.

While the industry kept expending, service quality was also constantly enhanced, bringing stronger sense of gaining to passengers. By the end of 2018, 229 airports in China enabled use of "TravelSky Pass" and 32 airports in China realized full electronic boarding procedure for passengers of domestic flights, enabling 225 million passengers to board the aircraft without paper boarding pass. 12 airlines enabled cabin network service on 301 aircraft. The year of 2018 received 20761 pieces of complaint from aviation consumers, down by 16.2% over last year.

Industry development needs solid support by science, education and talents. In 2018, colleges and institutes under CAAC enrolled a total of 23119 students, adding the number of students to 72944. The first selection of talents for civil aviation technological innovation across the industry was held, where 12 leading talents, 32 top-notch personnel and 20 innovation teams were appointed to support future development. By the end of 2018, there were 61492 Chinese civil pilots with valid licenses, 55243 licensed air crew, 7643 licensed dispatchers and 17757 technical personnel in the ATM system. In the meantime, oil consumption per ton-km was 0.287 kg in 2018, 15.6% lower than 2005 (benchmark year of the industry's energy conservation and emission reduction target); and CO2 emissions were reduced by 268 thousand tons due to remarkable achievements made in terms of APU replacement and airport vehicle engine modification ("fuel-driven to electricity-driven").