Li Jiaxiang, the newly appointed acting minister of the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China, has announced eight measures to control flight delays.

First, airlines, airports and supporting service enterprises can not apply for assessments within two years of having serious incidents caused by service problems. And for airlines, any scheduled flights with serious problems will be suspended for three months.

Second, from July through September 2008, among domestic airports in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other major cities that will receive Olympic visitors, the worst performing airports that that fail punctuality standards with normal flight rates lower than 50% will have the problematic flight routes suspended for a quarter.

Nest, during the summer and autumn 2008, Beijing's airport will limit total daily scheduled flights to 1,350. The other airports that will offer services for Olympic visitors must also ensure that visitors are overly delayed at the airport.

Fourth, the performance of airlines, airports and supporting service enterprises during the 2008 Olympic Games will be taken as one assessment principle for arranging flights from the winter of 2008 to the spring of 2009. Businesses that fail to perform well during the Olympics may see their schedules curtailed after the Games.

Fifth, airlines are not allowed to over-book seats on domestic flights from July through September 2008, and those based on airports of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other major cities that will receive Olympic visitors, are required to keep one or two planes in reserve. If a flight is delayed more than three hours because of air companies' reasons, the local civil aviation management departments have the right to transfer those passengers to another airline and the related airlines should refund the full price of the air tickets to passengers.

Sixth, airlines and airports must be completely responsible for loading and unloading luggage and cargo to avoid them being stolen or falsely claimed.

Seventh, related travel associations must strictly supervise, inspect and manage all sale agents.

Finally, those airlines that fail to meet the standards will not be allowed to apply to expand services and branch companies for two years.

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