CAAC was formed on November 2, 1949, shortly after the founding of the People's Republic of China, to manage all non-military aviation in the country, as well as provide general and commercial flight service. It was initially managed by the People's Liberation Army Air Force. In 1963, China purchased six Vickers Viscount aircraft from Great Britain, followed in 1971 with the purchase of four Hawker Siddeley Trident aircraft from Pakistan International Airlines. In August 1971 the airline purchased six Trident 2Es directly from Hawker Siddeley. The country also placed provisional orders for three Concorde aircraft. With the 1972 Nixon visit to China the country ordered 10 Boeing 707 jets. In December 1973 it took the unprecedented step of borrowing £40 million from Western banks to fund the purchase of 15 additional Trident jets. Russian built Ilyushin Il-62 aircraft were used on long range routes during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1980 the airline was transferred to the direct control of the State Council. In 1988 CAAC Airlines was divided up into a number of individual air carriers, each named after the region of China where it had its hub. Since then, CAAC acts solely as a government agency and no longer provides commercial flight service. In March 2008, CAAC was made a subsidiary of the newly created Ministry of Transport, and its official Chinese name was slightly adjusted to reflect its being no longer a ministry-level agency. Its official English name has remained Civil Aviation Administration of China. On 11 March 2019, the CAAC was the first civil aviation authority to ground the Boeing 737 MAX. After so doing, most of the world's aviation authorities grounded the MAX, including the European Union Aviation Safety Agency the next day. It took the US Federal Aviation Administration until 13 March to ground the MAX. Aviation commentators saw this as having bolstered the global reputation of the CAAC at the expense of the FAA.
CAAC Airlines
Current Role
Currently, CAAC is an administrative department mostly intended to supervise aviation market. CAAC releases route applications every week and for routes that don't fly to an open-sky country/region, there will be monthly scoring releases that determine the score for each of them. CAAC subsequently grant those whose score highest on the list permission to start. CAAC also issue frequent operation data and notices.
