BEIJING, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China will tighten control on the approval of new airlines, cut flights at its busiest airport in Beijing and raise safety checks, worried that the industry is expanding dangerously fast, the regulator said on Wednesday. No applications for new airlines will be accepted before 2010 and the growth of those already in operation will be controlled, the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China said in a statement on its Web site (www.caac.gov.cn).

Exceptions will be granted only to freight airlines, or to those that mainly use foreign pilots, promise to operate mostly at night, use Chinese-made aircraft or fly in the country's less developed west and northeast, it said.

"In recent years, our country's aviation industry has developed rapidly, maintaining an average annual growth rate in excess of 16 percent," it said.

"As the regulator, we have clearly noted that along with this, development problems of lack of technical personnel, airspace and airport ability are getting daily more pronounced," the statement added.

"To guarantee safety and ensure the good, quick, healthy and well-ordered development of the industry, the civil aviation department has decided to control the number of flights, permission for market entry and rate of growth," it added.

A plethora of new airlines have appeared since 2005, including Okay Airways, Spring Airlines and Juneyao Airlines, after the government allowed private companies to enter the sector and opened it up further to foreign investment.

The market's growth, on the back of an economic boom and rising incomes, has attracted attention not only from aircraft manufacturers Boeing Co. and Airbus, a unit of EADS, but also the likes of Singapore Airlines, the world's biggest airline by stock market value.

Yet despite billions of dollars spent to build new airports and upgrade old ones, delays are frequent as the infrastructure struggles to keep up.

Beijing's Capital Airport, China's busiest and in the midst of a huge expansion in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, has ordered an immediate cut in the flight schedules of all the main Chinese airlines operating there, the regulator said.

The order mainly covers flights by the three biggest: Air China, China Eastern Airlines Corp. and China Southern Airlines Co.