The air transportation system is of a great impact on the economy and globalization of a country. In this paper, we analyze the Chinese air transportation network (ATN) from a provincial perspective via the complex network framework, where all airports located in one province are abstracted as a single node and flights between two provinces are denoted by a link. The results show that the network exhibits small-world property, homogeneous structure and disassortative mixing. The variation of the flight flow within 24 h is investigated and an obvious tide phenomenon is found in the dynamics of Chinese provincial ATN for high output level of tertiary industry. Our work will offer a novel approach for understanding the characteristic of the Chinese air transportation network. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (author's final draft)