China will tighten control on the approval of new airlines, cut fl ights at its busiest airport in Beijing and raise safety checks, worried that the industry is expanding dangerously fast, the regulator was quoted as saying in a report by Reuters. No applications for new airlines will be accepted before 2010 and the growth of those already in operation will be controlled, the General Administration of Civil Aviationof China said in a statement.

Exceptions will be granted only to freight airlines, or to those that mainly use foreign pilots, promise to operate mostly at night, use Chinese-made aircraft or fl y in the country’s less developed west and northeast, it said.“In recent years, our country’s aviationindustry has developed rapidly, maintainingan average annual growth ratein excess of 16 percent,” it said.

“As the regulator, we have clearly noted that along with this, development problems of lack of technical personnel, airspace and airport ability are getting daily more pronounced,” the statement added. “To guarantee safety and ensure the good, quick, healthy and well-ordered development of the industry, the civil aviation department has decided to control the number of fl ights, permission for market entry and rate of growth,” it added.

Many new airlines have appeared since 2005, including Okay Airways, Spring Airlines and Juneyao Airlines, after the government allowed private companies to enter the sector and opened it up further to foreign investment. Yet despite billions of dollars spent to build new airports and upgrade old ones, delays are frequent as the infrastructure struggles to keep up.

Beijing’s Capital Airport, China’s busiest and in the midst of a huge expansion in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, has ordered an immediate cut in the fl ight schedules of all the main Chinese airlines operating there, the regulator said. The order mainly covers fl ights by the three biggest: Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines.