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Passenger traffic at Hainan's airports up 25% over five days of New Year holiday week

The airports served a total of 6,474 flights during the period

© Li Shaoyun, Chen Yijun / Sanya Daily

HAIKOU /China/, February 19. /Three airports in the southern Chinese province of Hainan served more than 1.22 million passengers during the first five days of the Golden Week, a week-long national holiday in honor of the Lunar New Year, the Hainan Daily reported.

From February 10 to 15, the passenger traffic of the three airports in Hainan's Haikou, Sanya and Boao increased by 25% year-on-year. The airports served a total of 6,474 flights during the period - an increase of 11%.

The record high was reached on February 15. The number of flights served went up by 8.3% to 1,086. The capacity of airports increased by 15.5% on February 15 and exceeded 200 thousand passengers.

According to the article, the operator of Hainan airports is taking necessary measures to increase their capacity and improve the efficiency of passenger processing during China's annual period of mass migration around the country, which began on January 26, when people head home or on vacations to celebrate the Lunar New Year. To save time, Meilan Airport in Haikou, for example, has put a runway into operation in test mode to reduce ground taxiing time by 3 to 4 minutes. Sanya Phoenix Airport, on the other hand, was able to increase the number of wide-body airplanes served daily to 138, a record high, thanks to a number of measures taken.

The Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival or Chunjie in Chinese, occurred on the night of February 9-10. Golden week is a weeklong holiday in honor of the New Year, which ended on February 17. On January 26, China's Chun Yun, the largest annual Lunar New Year migration period started. This is a time of extensive travel around the country, when locals return home and visit their relatives and friends. Chunyun starts two weeks before the Lunar New Year and lasts for 40 days.

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