China Southern Airlines

Is China Southern Airlines safe?

Yes. China Southern is the largest airline group in China and one of the largest in the world, and it has not had a fatal accident since May 1997. Its group fleet of 973 aircraft averaged 9.4 years at the end of June 2026. We score it 85, about level with Singapore Airlines. It would score higher if China's regulator published more about incidents and investigations, as regulators in Europe, the US and Singapore do.

The crashes in the 1990s

China Southern's fatal accidents all date from a period when Chinese aviation was growing fast and its safety record was far weaker than today.

• 24 November 1992, Guilin: flight CZ3943, a Boeing 737-300 from Guangzhou, crashed on approach to Guilin. All 141 people on board died.
• 8 May 1997, Shenzhen: a 737-300 from Chongqing crashed while landing at Shenzhen. 35 of the 74 people on board died.
• 2 October 1990, Guangzhou: a hijacked Xiamen Airlines 737 crashed while landing at Guangzhou and struck a China Southern 757 waiting on the ground with passengers on board. 46 of the 122 people on the 757 died. The Aviation Safety Network records it as an act of unlawful interference, not an accident caused by the airline.

China Southern took over China Northern and Xinjiang Airlines in the 2002–2003 restructuring of Chinese aviation. Their older crashes, including the 2002 arson attack on a China Northern MD-82 off Dalian, happened before the merger and are not counted here.

Since 1997, the record is clean of deaths. The local Aviation Safety Network data shows 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 at China Southern itself in the last 20 years. Its subsidiary Xiamen Airlines wrote off a 737-800 in a runway excursionRunway excursionWhen an aircraft leaves the runway surface during take-off or landing, either off the end (an overrun) or off the side (a veer-off).More in the glossary at Manila in 2018, with no injuries; see our Xiamen Airlines page.

What incidents are on record?

The most serious recent event was on 21 October 2024. Flight CZ3534, a Boeing 787-9, landed hard at Guangzhou and struck its tail on the runway. Nobody was reported hurt, but the structural damage kept the aircraft out of service until December 2025. Early information from China suggested the landing technique of a pilot in training played a large role, which is the kind of event that training supervision should catch.

Beyond that, the public record is thin. That is partly good news and partly a gap in what we can see. China's Civil Aviation Administration (CAAC) investigates most incidents itself and rarely publishes the reports. European airlines are covered by public BEA, AAIB or BFU reports, and US airlines by the NTSB. For China Southern, we rely on the airline's own filings, the Aviation Safety Network and foreign investigators when flights go wrong abroad.

Fleet: big, fairly young and changing

China Southern's 2026 interim report lists the group fleet at 30 June 2026:

Type	Aircraft	Average age
Airbus A320 family	411	9.1 years
Boeing 737 (NG and MAX)	391	10.9 years
Boeing 787	40	8.2 years
COMAC C909 (ARJ21)	40	3.5 years
Airbus A330	25	10.3 years
Airbus A350	20	4.8 years
Boeing 777 (passenger)	15	9.7 years
COMAC C919	11	0.9 years

These figures include Xiamen Airlines and 20 freighters. The Chinese-built C909 regional jet and the C919 are new types with few flying hours compared with Airbus and Boeing models, so their long-term record is not yet known. No serious accident has been reported on either. In April 2026, the group agreed to buy 137 more A320neo-family aircraft, subject to shareholder approval.

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 (list of April 2025), 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 (June 2026). In a paper to the ICAO Assembly, China reported an effective implementationICAO USOAPICAO's audit of how well each country's aviation regulator oversees safety. The result is an "effective implementation" percentage.More in the glossary score of 90.19% in its 2024 ICAO safety audit, well above the global average. China Southern is an IATA member and so is registered under 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, IATA's operational safety audit.

We still keep oversight at 80, below the EU, US or Singapore. The CAAC has published no update on the 2022 China Eastern crash since March 2024, although ICAO rules ask for an interim statement on each anniversary. Transparency of this kind is part of what makes a regulator strong.

How to fly China Southern safely

• Check who operates your flight. A ticket sold as China Southern may be flown by a subsidiary such as Xiamen, Chongqing or Guizhou Airlines. They hold their own certificates under the same regulator.
• Expect weather delays from May to October. Typhoons and thunderstorms hit Guangzhou and Shenzhen often. Delays and diversions in this season are normal safety decisions, not a warning sign.
• Keep your belt on in cruise. On routes over south China and the South China Sea, convective turbulence is common in the summer months.

How we scored it

The accident record (93) is the main strength: no fatal crash in 29 years on a very large fleet. Oversight (80) and serious incidents (76) are held back by how little China's regulator publishes. Compare Emirates, which has never had a passenger death but scores lower on its accident record because of the 2016 Dubai crash landing.