New air routes set to alleviate congestion

Nation is expected to handle more than 10 million flights in 2017, official says

China aims to handle its serious air traffic congestion and flight delays by opening 10 one-way air passages, senior civil aviation officials said.

"Over the past 10 years, the number of flights using China's airspace has continued to increase 10 percent year-on-year, but our airspace that can be used by civil airlines is only one-third of that in the United States and the number of our air traffic controllers is about half of that of the US," said Che Jinjun, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China's air traffic management bureau.