China will speed up the approval process for operators of business jets to acquire new aircraft and plan flight routes, as the nation's private-aircraft business starts to take off.
The number of private jets on the mainland reached 109 last year, up 45.3 per cent year on year. In comparison, the growth of general aviation during the same period was only 14.2 per cent, Xia Xinghua, deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said in Shanghai yesterday.
Xia said 48 private-jet-charter start-ups were now awaiting the CAAC's approval to enter the market. Last year there were only nine such operators on the mainland.
He said the government was ready to shorten the approval process, to make it easier for charter-jet companies to acquire new aircraft. At present it takes three months on average for an operator to get approval.
'The number of [available slots] at airports for business jets is not enough,' Xia said, 'Also, the management of airspace, air routes and flight plans can be improved.'
There are only 180 airports in China that allow private jets to land and take off, compared with 15,000 in the United States.
Xia said the government would invest in infrastructure and hoped to cut the approval time for flight plans to three days or less in future. But in the short term, they would approve only about 30 new operators by 2015, to ensure safety standards.