Air Ticket Price Not to Climb with Rising Oil Price: Official

China will not comprehensively lift air ticket prices in spite of the fourfold increase of oil prices in the first half of this year, according to an official with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) in Beijing on Friday.

The oil price hike has added 1.27 billion yuan to the oil cost of domestic airlines, accounting for 31 percent of the total cost, compared to the previous 22 percent, according to Hai Liancheng, director of the finance department of CAAC.

"We don't intend to raise the ticket price. On the contrary, we will make efforts to upgrade profits through improving efficiency and lowering expenditure," said Hai.

But he didn't deny the possibility of raising the ticket prices on some popular air routes.

The latest statistics show that the gross air transportation turnover reached 5.56 billion ton-kilometers in the first half of 2000, while the volume of passengers and cargo hit 31.4 million persons and 894,000 tons, up 15.1 percent, 12.7 percent and 15.3 percent, respectively.



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