Passenger traffic carried by mainland airlines increased 7.3 pct year-on-year to 77.61 mln in the first five months of the year, the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) said.

In a statement published on its website, the CAAC said that cargo traffic rose 9.9 pct from a year earlier to 1.695 mln tons in the period.

In the first five months, domestic passenger traffic was 71.69 mln people, up 7.6 pct year-on-year, while international passengers increased by 4.8 pct to 6.607 mln.

Cargo carried by the airlines in the first five months rose to 1.2 mln tons for domestic routes and 493,245 tons on international routes, up 8.5 pct and 13.6 pct, respectively.

In May, passenger traffic decreased 1.1 pct year-on-year to 15.36 mln while cargo turnover rose 11.5 pct to 351,862 tons.

The average passenger load factor in May was 70.9 pct, down by 2.8 percentage points from a year earlier, while the overall load factor was up 0.7 percentage point at 65.2 pct, the CAAC said.

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