The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has announced several changes to the country's regulatory environment concerning the establishment of new carriers and their operational parameters.

According to a policy paper seen by CargoFacts, the new measures will focus on three areas namely: increasing safety by reducing congestion at China's larger airports such as Beijing Capital and Shanghai Pudong; the promotion of regional and dedicated cargo carriers; and the promotion of locally manufactured aircraft among local carriers.

Concerning the issue of market saturation and airfield congestion, CAAC is looking at limiting the number of airlines allowed to be based at a particular airport.

The report claims a maximum of three airlines may be "home-based" at an airport which handles 10-30 million passengers per annum, four at airports with annual traffic of 30-50 million and five at airports with traffic above 50 million.

Among the regulatory areas CAAC wishes to focus on is the use of a loophole wherin large passenger carriers would suddenly spring forth from a cargo or regional carrier still in their initial stages of development.

Instead, CAAC, now plans to enforce certain operational minima including requiring cargo airlines to operate at least twenty aircraft, and log an average of 2,400 monthly flight hours before adding large-scale aircraft. In a similar vain, regional carriers will also be required to have at least twenty-five aircraft in service flying at least 3,000 hours a month before moving to larger scale machines.