Mainland airlines can no longer blame air traffic control for flight delays , as more than a third of the incidents are of their own making, according to data compiled by the industry watchdog.
In a rare review of the reasons behind flight delays, a constant pain for mainland travellers, the Civil Aviation Administration of China found 37.1 per cent of the 538,000 delays last year were caused by the airlines themselves.
Air traffic control, which is commonly blamed for the delays, accounted for only 27.5 per cent. Bad weather contributed to 20 per cent, while other reasons accounted for 15.4 per cent.
Airline problems range from technical issues to disruption in aircraft deployment from one airport to another and the availability of cabin crew.
Severe flight delays often lead to disputes between ground staff and grumpy passengers, sometimes turning violent and ending in fisticuffs. Angered by the recurrent delays, CAAC in 2010 ordered airlines to improve their performance and threatened to cancel flights if they delayed by more than four hours.
The latest CAAC report does not, however, lay down the parameters it used to define a flight delay. Generally, if an airplane is late by more than 30 minutes, it is considered a delay.
But delays on the mainland are mostly longer than 30 minutes. A former official of Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, near Shanghai, said about half the flights in 2010 were late for more than an hour because of increases in air traffic volume as a result of the Shanghai Expo and mismanagement by air traffic controllers. The situation in Shanghai should be similar to Hangzhou, the official added.