Air passengers in China had a particularly frustrating month as only half of the July's flights were on time, mainly due to extreme weather conditions, the civil aviation authority said Tuesday.

Of the 448,370 civil flights in July, only 50.76 percent operated on schedule, data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) showed.

Zhang Chunzhi, an official with the CAAC, told a press briefing that 58.6 percent of the flight delays were caused by bad weather.

Many parts of China witnessed more thunderstorms than usual in July, she said, noting that airports in the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Kunming experienced thunderstorms on more than 10 days.

Meanwhile, China was affected by five typhoons during the past month, which disrupted air traffic in the country's coastal regions, Zhang said.

A total of 312 million passenger trips were made via planes in the first seven months of this year, up 13.2 percent year on year, according to the CAAC.

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