The Chinese mainland's air transportation volume ranked the world's fifth last year, following the US, Germany, Britain and Japan.

In the first six months of this year, the Chinese mainland's passenger volume hit 56 million, up 39 percent over the same period last year, while the total aviation transportation turnover reached more than 70 billion yuan or nearly 8 and a half billion US dollars.

However, participants of the ongoing national civil aviation working conference notes that airport services are in need of improvement, and flights are frequently delayed.

To remedy this situation, by the end of this year all airports must issue written guarantees of service quality and airports with substandard services will be fined.

(CRI.com August 12, 2004)