(Yicai Global) May 14 -- China’s airlines transported 51.1 million people in April, the highest number since January last year when the civil aviation industry’s troubles began with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the latest figures.

Passenger traffic returned to pre-Covid-19 levels last month at 96.2 percent of the number of travelers over the same period in 2019, Zhu Tao, spokesman for the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said today. April’s figures were triple that of 2020.

China’s airlines completed 450,000 flights last month, which at an average of 15,000 flights a day was more than double than a year earlier and a gain of 6.2 percent from March, Zhu said. Flight punctuality was around 82.7 percent.

Some 655,000 tons of freight and post were transported in April, a year-on-year gain of 35 percent and a 9 percent increase from the same period in 2019, Zhu said. Of this, cargo aircraft carried 263,000 tons, up 11.2 percent.

The country’s civil aviation industry’s total transport turnover more than doubled last month year on year to 9.2 billion ton-kilometers, 87.7 percent that of the same period in 2019, Zhu said.

Editor: Kim Taylor