Flights affected by PLA live-fire drills

Passengers in East and Central China will face mass flight delays and cancellations until Aug 15 after 12 airports were ordered to reduce scheduled flights by 25 percent due to large-scale People's Liberation Army drills, cnr.cn confirmed on Tuesday, citing officials from the Civil Administration of China.

Affected airports include Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and Pudong International, among the country's busiest terminals, together with others in East China cities of Nanjing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Jinan, Qingdao, and Central China's Wuhan and Zhengzhou. Most of the affected airports are located in economically prosperous parts of the country.

By 12:30 pm on Monday, 98 flights had been cancelled at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and 15 flights had been delayed for over two hours. At Pudong Airport, the situation was worse. 101 flights had been cancelled and 103 had been delayed, ecns.cn reported Tuesday.

Air traffic control in eastern and central China also affected southern and northern Chinese cities. According to news.youth.cn. Flights in southern cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and northern cities including Beijing and Shijiazhuang, were disrupted as well.

According to a People's Daily report last Wednesday, PLA land forces will hold 10 inter-regional drills over the next three months.

The first maneuver began a week ago in Northwest China's Gansu province, involving Chengdu Military Region's Air Defense Brigade stationed in Tibet autonomous region.

Ten rocket artilleries and air defense artilleries from Nanjing, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chengdu and Jinan will take part in the three-month live fire drills, said People's Daily.