An emergency plan was triggered at Pudong International Airport on Thursday after nearly all of the over 5,300 parking lots at the P1 and P2 parking buildings became occupied.

Airport staff guided drivers to park at the P0 and P4 garages, which are about 1km away from the terminals. Travelers can then take a free shuttle bus to the terminal buildings.

Pudong airport is handling about 1,530 takeoffs and landings every day, with some 210,000 daily passengers during the Spring Festival holiday, the Shanghai Airport Authority said.

On top of that, Pudong airport has scheduled 20 overnight flights each day as part of a nationwide trial to cope with the travel rush. The total number of flights during the peak period is 1.37 percent more than last year.

"Most passengers on the overnight flights choose to drive to the airport and park their vehicles in the parking lots," said Cao Liu, general manager with the transport support department of the airport. The number of parked vehicles has increased by 15 percent year on year for Tuesday and Wednesday, the first and second days of the Chinese Lunar New Year, Cao said.

Shuttle buses will set off every five minutes to take passengers between the terminals and the remote parking garages, with 50 in operation on the circuit. Though a single trip takes about five minutes, authorities recommend passengers spare at least 30 minutes to shuttle between the parking area and the terminals during the peak period.

A large number of passengers are expected at Pudong airport between February 10 to 14, and the airport expects to handle a record 225,000 a day at the end of the holiday this weekend.

In total Shanghai's two international airports, Pudong and Hongqiao, are expected to handle 13.2 million passengers during the peak travel period which will last until March 1, a 5 percent increase over last year.