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China's civil airlines handled more than 1.76 million passengers during this year's week-long Spring Festival holiday, up 9.5 percent over the previous year.

According to the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China, during the "golden week", a total of 16,901 flights were put in service with an average occupancy rate of 65 percent, up 8.4 percent and 3.7 percentage points respectively year-on-year.

Compared with previous years, the time of this year's passenger peak lengthened as figures indicate that during the half month prior to the vacation period, the number of daily passengers reached 256,000, up 40,000 year-on-year.

During the first three days of the vacation, when passengers were often sparse in the past, the occupancy rate of flights from cities like Guangzhou, Urumqi and Hefei was as high as over 70 percent.

Meanwhile, this year's passenger tide seemed to focus on tourist resorts like Haikou and Sanya in the south and ChangChun and Harbin in the north. Flights from these locations were more than 70 percent full, and some even reached 90 percent.

The Baiyun International Airport of GuangZhou in south China's Guangdong Province turned out to be the busiest airport in the country. On Feb. 2 alone, it handled a total of 38,000 passengers, with an occupancy rate as high as 96 percent.

During the entire vacation period, more than 200 extra flights a day were added.