On Friday, Song Zhiyong was appointed as the new head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, replacing Feng Zhenglin.

Song, a former military pilot, joined Air China (with the new name of China National Aviation Corp) in 1987 and has been working his way up to the head of the company.

On the same day, the administration released the sector's operation data.

Last month, China's civil aviation sector handled 12.07 million passenger trips, increased 53.2 percent compared with April and dropped 76 percent compared with the same period of last year, Wu Shijie, deputy director of the administration's safety office, told an online news conference.

It sent 491,000 metric tons of cargo and mails, a year-on-year decline of 26 percent.

In May, 178,000 flights were handled across China, an average of 5,747 flights on daily basis, a year-on-year decline of 60.2 percent.

More than 97 percent of flights were on time across the country.