BEIJING, March 6 -- China's air passenger trips reached 83.45 million during the Spring Festival 40-day travel rush, also known as "chunyun", that ran from Jan. 26 to March 5 this year, official data showed Wednesday.

During the period, the civil aviation sector handled over 2.08 million passenger trips per day, hitting a record high, data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) revealed.

The figure rose 51.1 percent from the same period last year, and 14.5 percent from the same period in 2019.

According to the CAAC, Chinese airports handled a total of 683,000 flights during the holiday, with the number of average daily flights rising 27.4 percent from a year ago to over 17,000.