China's civil aviation industry achieved a total turnover volume of 8.68 billion tonne-kilometers in August 2016, a year-on-year growth of 11.8%, according to the monthly traffic statistics released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

The statistics shows that passenger numbers rose 11.5% to 46.42 million. The number of passengers travelling on domestic and international flights increased 10.1% and 24.2% respectively to 41.33 million and 5.09 million.

Chinese airlines handled 533,000 tonnes of cargo and mail in August, up 5.1% year on year. Cargo traffic saw a growth of 5.9% on domestic routes, with 3.5% growth on international routes.

Passenger load factor rose 0.4 percentage points to 86.1% and the freight load factor increased 0.9 percentage point to 74.1%.

The aircraft utilization rate averaged 9.8 hours per day, 0.3 hour fewer than the same period last year. The aircraft utilization rate was 9.9 hours per day for medium and large aircraft and 7 hours per day for small aircraft.

In the first August months of 2016, Chinese airlines carried up to 322.2 million passengers, up 10.9% over a year earlier.