中国飞机航班延误情况恶化

 　　According to the figures from the CAAC, the average on-time rate for domestic airlines was just over 65 percent between January and June, compared to over 68 percent last year.

　　In other words, a passenger flying on a Chinese airline experiences a flight delay in one of every three trips.

　　The data shows that the on-schedule rate exceeded 72 percent in January, the highest in the first six months and almost at the same level as a year ago.

　　But the rate declined in the following months with June suffering the worst slide as it dropped to below 60 percent.

　　中国飞机航班延误情况恶化

　　Gao Yuanyang with the aeronautics-focused Beihang University says many factors can affect the rate.

　　"Weather conditions, the management quality of an airline company, the scheduling of airport runway operations and airspace arrangements all play important roles. Sometimes, an unexpected small change is enough to spoil a well-designed flight plan."

　　Meanwhile, a notable increase in passenger flow and unchanged air route capacity are believed to contribute to massive delays.

　　Stats show that the monthly increase of air passenger flow in China exceeded 10 percent in the first half of the year.

　　The airports in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have to deal with at least 90 take-offs and landings per hour, while the average amount of traffic on the country's busiest air routes exceeds 11-hundred planes a day, nearly double that seen in Europe and America.

　　Gao Yuanyang says delays are inevitable¹ in the face of such busy air traffic.

　　"There must be a certain distance between two landing planes. If the distance is not long enough, the latter one will be ordered to wait by circling around in the air. And if the arrival airport is too busy to receive any more flights, the departure airport will postpone² the take-off of the plane."

　　Gao suggests that domestic air control authorities could expand air route capacity by allowing more aircrafts to fly in the same airspace but at different altitudes.

　　The CAAC also blames increasing extreme weather events this year for worsening flight delays.

　　The authority also revealed that it has received about 700 complaints about delays this year. Most complaints centered on getting stranded³ on board while waiting for take-off, slow information updates and unsatisfactory compensation for passengers.

　　For CRI, I'm Luo Wen.

1 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

2 postpone   

v.延期，推迟

参考例句：

• I shall postpone making a decision till I learn full particulars.在未获悉详情之前我得从缓作出决定。
• She decided to postpone the converastion for that evening.她决定当天晚上把谈话搁一搁。

3 stranded   

a.搁浅的，进退两难的

参考例句：

• He was stranded in a strange city without money. 他流落在一个陌生的城市里， 身无分文，一筹莫展。
• I was stranded in the strange town without money or friends. 我困在那陌生的城市，既没有钱，又没有朋友。