Over 10m air trips made during Spring Festival holiday

BEIJING - More Chinese travelled by air during the just-concluded week-long Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, official data showed Thursday.

A total of 11.4 million passenger trips were made from Feb 15 to 21, up 16.1 percent from the last year's holiday, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

The flight punctuality rate also improved, increasing 6.1 percentage points to 90.95 percent.

Popular tourism destinations like Haikou, Lijiang, and Harbin saw busy airports as many Chinese families chose to travel domestically.

Some 386 million domestic passenger trips were made, up 12.1 percent from last year's holiday, official data showed.

Travelling by air has become increasingly popular in China thanks to expanding air networks. Over 5.1 million commercial flights were recorded last year, up 9.48 percent year-on-year, official data showed.