New Rules to Ease Flight Delays

  Li Jiaxiang, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said in an interview over the weekend that the measures include asking airlines to reserve 2 percent of their total capacity to deal with serious flight delays.

  On busy routes, especially between three hubs - Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou - airlines should cancel flights that are expected to be delayed for more than four hours so that passengers can transfer to other flights.

  Once flights are delayed for 30 minutes, airlines must tell passengers the expected take-off time along with the reasons for the delay.

  Li also urged air traffic management to improve efficiency so that planes spend less time waiting to receive clearance for take-off.

  Since January, the CAAC has adopted measures to reduce flight delays, including canceling flights that are delayed for more than four hours if the airline is to blame.

  As a result of these measures, the percentage of delays caused solely by airlines in the first half of this year is less than that for the same period last year, he said.

  According to the CAAC's rules, passengers only receive compensation from airlines when the airlines are responsible for the delays.

  Insiders said many passengers felt they could be fooled by airlines which attributed delays to weather conditions to avoid paying compensation.

  Airlines are taking note. Earlier this month, China Eastern Airlines began dealing with insurance companies over compensating passengers for flight delays and there are concerns that schemes like this could result in passengers paying additional fees.

  On average, 80 percent of domestic flights take off on schedule and the punctuality rate is above the world average, Xia Xinghua, deputy head of the CAAC, said earlier this month, citing official statistics for the past five years.