China's civil aviation industry earned 2.37 billion yuan ($362.9 million) in profit this March.

That's down 27.2 percent from a year earlier, China Business News reported Friday, citing data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

The industry's profits amounted to 7.48 billion yuan in the first three months, up 17.5 percent from the same time period of last year, according to the CAAC data.

The data also shows that profits for airline companies in March reached 1.71 billion yuan. That's a decrease of 36.2 percent year-on-year. But profits for the first quarter of this year were up 31.8 percent to 5.73 billion yuan.

Airports gained 250 million yuan in profits this March. They earned the same in March 2010. However, for the first quarter of this year, airports earned 690 million yuan in profits, a decrease of 44.6 percent year-on-year.