China's airlines have marked the longest continuous safe flight record in world civil aviation history of over 100 million continuous hours (137 months) as of February 19, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said on Friday.

This was the best safety performance in the history of China's civil aviation industry. Zhu Tao, an official with the CAAC, said that China's flight safety record was "much better than the world's average in the same period and also superior to those of major developed countries."

During the past five years, the quality of safety operation of China's airlines has been continuously improved, Zhu said. He also said that the punctuality rate of Chinese airlines reached 96.9 percent in January.

(With input from Xinhua)