BEIJING - China's airports saw surging international flights last year as more Chinese travelled overseas, official data showed.

Over 51.6 million passenger trips to international destinations were made in 2016 via the country's civil aviation service, rising 22.7 percent year on year, according to a report by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Domestic flights saw about 436 million passenger trips last year, up 10.7 percent year on year.

A total of 3.679 million passenger flights were made last year, with 76.76 percent of them generally on time, up by about 8 percentage points compared with 2015, the report showed.

By the end of last year, China had 218 licensed airports and 2,950 aircraft for civil aviation, according to the report.