CHINA’S airlines and airports have long been notorious for their lateness. Since mid-July they have got much, much worse as rafts of flights have been delayed or cancelled. On July 26th the country’s Civil Aviation Administration warned of “massive flight delays” in eastern and central China. Capacity would drop by 65% on some routes, the agency said. On July 28th nearly 200 flights were cancelled at Shanghai’s two airports, and 120 were delayed by more than two hours.Frustrated travellers beg for more information. While some officials, rather implausibly, have put it all down to bad weather, it perhaps marks an advance in transparency that others blame “air-traffic control”, and specifically the role of military drills, for the havoc. Even so, claims by the defence ministry that the live-fire drills they announced were having only “limited impact” on civilian aviation have been met with raspberries.The problem is that less than 30% of China’s airspace is open to civil aviation, compared with more than 85% in the United States. The armed forces hog the rest. A Chinese aviation expert estimates that the air force could, by transferring a tenth of its airspace...
from The Economist: China http://ift.tt/1oe7I1I
No comments:
Post a Comment