China's aviation regulator has vowed to enhance construction of smart airports across the nation in a bid to resolve the gap between growing travel demand and insufficient airport capacity. 

In the past, China has made achievements in airport construction, but problems in management and services still persist, and it is time to better integrate technology, Zhang Rui, an official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said on Thursday.

He said that the tools will cover cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence. 

The number of civil airports and the airport business has witnessed rapid development.

In 2018, the annual passenger throughput of civil airports reached 1.26 billion and the number of flights arriving and departing reached 11.089 million, according to data from CAAC, adding the average annual passenger growth rate in the past 10 years reached 11 percent.

The number of national civil airports in the Chinese mainland reached 236 by 2018, with an average of seven new airports per year, CAAC said. The number of airports with passenger throughput exceeding 10 million reached 37, and the number of airports with throughout of 30 million reached 10, according to CAAC. 

However, big airports face insufficient capacity and cannot meet passengers' demand for convenience and efficiency, and the gap is getting bigger, Zhang said.

"Creating smart airports is a solution to shift airport development from quantity to quality," Zhang said. 

The airport in Kunming, Southwest China's Yunnan Province has achieved an estimated landing time error of less than 5 minutes for more than 85 percent of inbound flights, and the Hongqiao airport in Shanghai was the first to introduce self-check-in machines, making the process faster and more convenient, according to CAAC.

The coverage of self-service check-in equipment at Beijing Daxing International Airport, which is about to be put into operation in late September, is expected to reach 86 percent, and the coverage rate of self-service check-in equipment is expected to reach 76 percent. 

The security checkpoints in the Daxing airport will introduce facial recognition technology and passengers can use paperless boarding passes with the help of self-services. 

Xinhua reported that Chinese airports are adopting 5G networks to meet public demand. 

The Shenyang general aviation industry base in Liaoning Province launched a 5G base station in February, making it the first 5G-equipped general aviation airport in northeast China.

In late January, the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in South China's Guangdong Province launched a 5G base station.