The Ministry of Transport said Monday that 33.76 million air passenger trips were taken in China during the 40-day Spring Festival travel rush, up 3.6 percent year-on-year.

During the period hundreds of millions of Chinese, mainly migrant workers and college students, travel home. The travel rush period stretched from Jan. 8 to Feb. 16 this year.

To meet the travel demand, the country's airlines made a total of 250,000 flights during the travel rush, up 7.7 percent from a year earlier, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

The ministry said the number of flights increased 17.3 percent year-on-year during the 14-day travel rush before the Spring Festival holiday, 9.4 percent over the week-long holiday and 4.2 percent afterwards.

The Spring Festival holiday began on Jan. 22 this year, one day ahead of Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, which is most important festival for Chinese.

During the festival travel period, air passenger trips peaked at 968,000 on Jan. 28, the last day of the Spring Festival holiday, according to the ministry.