IT will be hard for Shanghai's civil airports to achieve this year's target of delivering 56 million passengers, a senior official with Shanghai Airport Authority said yesterday.

In the first five months, Pudong International Airport and Hongqiao Airport handled 21.22 million passengers, 5.02 percent more than a year before, and cargo volume rose 12.04 percent to 1.25 million tons, said the authority's vice president, Wang Guangdi.

"The passenger volume for May grew at a slower pace partly because the Sichuan earthquake dampened the tourism industry," Wang said while he was attending the AirportTech Asia 2008 summit in Shanghai.

He said it would be hard for the group to accomplish this year's target due to the gloomy performance over the past few months, but the industry would soon revive with the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing in August. The two airports handled 51.57 million passengers last year.

He also expected that the group's listed arm, Shanghai International Airport Co, to maintain 11-percent profit growth this year as the Olympic Games would bring more business opportunities.

The Pudong airport will host more new flights as its newly added second terminal greatly boosts the airport's capacity, while Hongqiao airport will have its second terminal and runway in the first half of 2010, said Wang.

Referring to the weekend chartered flights between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, Wang said the Pudong airport had no problem handling these flights.

"The number of chartered flights is not big and the airport has rich experience as it has been hosting festival chartered flights for years," Wang said.

China Eastern Airlines and Shanghai Airlines will run a total of six weekend flights from Shanghai to Taiwan.