Domestic airlines are preparing to put some planes on stand-by at airports in major cities to cope with flight delays and emergencies as a response to a call from the Civil Aviation Administration of China which urged immediate action to prevent or minimize delays and improve passenger services.
"China Eastern Airlines will station a back-up plane in Beijing in case Shanghai's weather conditions prevent our flights from arriving at Beijing in time and we're still working on plans for other cities," Luo Zhuping, the carrier's board secretary, said yesterday.
Over the weekend, Li Jiaxiang, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, asked domestic airlines to set aside 2 percent of their total capacity as back-up to ensure there are enough planes to better cope with the flight delays. He has also ordered major carriers including Air China and China Southern Airlines to put an aircraft on stand-by in airports in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. He, however, didn't specify when the new rules will come into effect.
Luo said that flights between Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou should be cancelled if they were going to be delayed by more than four hours and that passengers should be informed if their flight delay was expected to be more than 30 minutes.
He also reiterated that there should be better coordination between airlines, airports and air traffic control authorities to ensure flights are on time and information is reliable.
"The average-on-schedule rate of domestic flights is 76.89 percent in the second half of this year, compared with 81.90 percent in the whole of 2009 as adverse weather conditions have affected the normal schedule of flights," Xia Xinghua, vice director of the CAAC, told Xinhua news agency in an interview early this month.
Air China said it would study the number and type of planes to be set aside as back-up to prevent delays.
