China's airline authority announced guidelines for compensation for delayed flights, CCTV reported Saturday.

Passengers would be compensated in cash, with discounted air tickets and free offers of accumulated air trips if they could not board planes because of faults with the airlines, the guidelines said.

It divided circumstances of delay into two categories -- delays of more than four hours and delays of more than eight hours.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the airline authority, said airlines should publish their detailed compensation plans for delayed flights in their service commitments.

The compensation would not be paid on the spot to avoid further delay. Airlines could register affected passengers and pay them later, the CAAC said.

It also said airports should take measures to stop affected passengers from causing problems such as by refusing to board planes.

But some airlines said it was hard to draw up a detailed compensation plan as reasons for delays varied.

The CAAC said it would take measures to punish airlines which had attracted frequent complaints.

Complaints about airline services have been increasing in recent years. Statistics from CAAC's Consumers Business Center show that the number of consumer complaints in 2003 increased by 27 percent from 2002 and complaints about flight delays topped the list.

(Shenzhen Daily June 28, 2004)