Beibu Gulf Airlines

Is Beibu Gulf Airlines safe?

Yes, as far as the public record shows. Beibu Gulf Airlines, which sells tickets as GX Airlines, has flown from Nanning since 16 February 2015 without an accident, and the Aviation Safety Network database has no hull lossHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary or damage event for it. We score it 81, the same as its sister Fuzhou Airlines and four points below Hainan Airlines, which owns 70% of it.

The catch is how little there is to judge. The record is under 12 years long, the fleet is about 25 jets, and we found no public report of any incident at all. That could mean a quiet, well-run airline. It could also mean that China's regulator, which publishes very few investigation reports, simply has not told anyone. We cannot tell which, so we do not score the airline as if the record were proven clean.

Who runs it?

The airline was set up by the HNA aviation group and the government of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with money from Hainan Airlines Holding and a regional investment company, Guangxi Beitou Civil Aviation Investment. Its main base is Nanning Wuxu International Airport. On 8 December 2021, after the HNA Group's court-supervised restructuring, it came under the control of Liaoning Fangda Group with the other HNA airlines, and it now calls itself New HNA Beibu Gulf Airlines.

It flies under its own GX code and its own operating certificate. Under our rules, its record counts here and not on the Hainan page.

Like several small HNA airlines, it loses money. Hainan's 2026 half-year report shows a net loss of about CNY 114 million on revenue of CNY 1.80 billion in the first six months, and negative net assets of about CNY 850 million. We found nothing linking this to safety, and the airline sits inside a group that made a profit in the same period.

Fleet: from Embraer to Airbus

The company lists 25 aircraft: 20 Airbus A320s and 5 Embraer E190s. Two years ago the mix was very different. At the end of July 2024 the airline had 28 aircraft, 12 of them E190s, and it had just taken the first of two A320neos leased from CDB Aviation, which were to bring its neo count to six. Since then, most of the Embraers have gone and the Airbus share has grown.

Both types are fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary jets with modern cockpits. The weak point is that the airline publishes no average age of its own. Its parent's half-year report gives figures across all its airlines: 49 A320s averaging 8.1 years and 8 E190s averaging 16.5 years at the end of June 2026. The E190s are the oldest aircraft, and they are on their way out. Without a company figure, we score the fleet at 76, in line with Hainan's mid-life fleet, rather than reward it for a youth we cannot confirm.

The network and the weather

Nanning is in the subtropical south of China, inland from the Gulf of Tonkin (Beibu Gulf in Chinese), which gives the airline its name. Summers are hot and wet, with heavy afternoon thunderstorms and typhoons from July to October. The domestic network reaches the main Chinese cities, plus mountain airports in the south-west. The airline says its 79 routes serve 59 cities and that it is building an international network towards Bangkok, Hanoi and Vientiane.

None of this is extreme, and Nanning Wuxu is a modern airport. But thunderstorm season brings delays, diversions and some turbulence, and South-East Asian airports vary more in their equipment than the big Chinese hubs.

Oversight

China holds Category 1FAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary in the FAA's International Aviation Safety Assessment, and no Chinese airline is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary. China told the ICAO Assembly that it scored 90.19% in its 2024 ICAO safety audit. The airline is on the IATA member list as GX Airlines, which requires an IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit. Our standard score for a Chinese airline with IOSA is 80, held down by how little the CAAC publishes.

Before you fly

• Summer afternoons in Nanning often bring thunderstorms. Morning departures are less likely to be held, and keeping your seat belt fastened when seated matters more on this network than on most.
• If a typhoon is forecast for the Guangxi coast, check your flight the evening before on the airline's app or its hotline (95370) rather than at the airport.
• On international flights to South-East Asia, expect more holding and weather diversions in the wet season than on the domestic trunk routes, and leave a long connection.

How we scored it

The accident record (88) is clean but short. Oversight (80) is the standard score for a Chinese airline with IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary. Incidents (74) and fleet (76) are held down mainly by missing data: no public incident reports and no fleet age figure of its own, not by anything we found against the airline.