In order to accurately explore the airport capacity utilization in China, airport capacity utilization index was proposed integrating "capacity demand" and "capacity supply", which evaluated the level of capacity utilization of 239 airports nationwide in 2019. Then, the capacity constrained airports were identified from the two dimensions of "full year" and "peak hour", the characteristics of which were explored in terms of spatial distribution, airport positioning, runway configuration and rush hour distribution. Finally, three future development scenarios were set to predict the capacity utilization of national and typical airports in 2025 and 2035. The research results indicate that about 92% of the airports in China are not capacity constrained, and there are significant differences among the airports. Eleven capacity constrained airports are mainly served as hubs and main coordinated airports. The airport capacity can generally meet the developing demand of civil aviation in China in the future, and only Shenzhen and Xi′an airports are expected to confront heavy capacity pressure. Combined measures can be taken from the two perspectives of "increasing capacity" and "balancing demand" to improve the matching degree of airport departure and landing demand with capacity supply, and to promote the level of airport capacity utilization.