Fuzhou Airlines

Is Fuzhou Airlines safe?

Yes, on everything the public record shows. Fuzhou Airlines has flown since 30 October 2014 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. The airline says it has carried more than 30 million passengers and flown more than 490,000 hours. We score it 81, a few points below its parent Hainan Airlines (85).

The gap has three causes, none of them a known safety problem. The record is about 12 years long on a fleet of 17 jets, so it carries less weight than Hainan's 33 years. The fleet is all Boeing 737, mostly the older 737-800. And China's regulator publishes so little about incidents that we cannot tell a truly quiet record from a quiet regulator.

Who runs Fuzhou Airlines?

Fuzhou Airlines was set up by the HNA aviation group and the Fuzhou city government as the city's first home airline. Since December 2021 the HNA airlines have been controlled by Liaoning Fangda Group, after the HNA Group's court-supervised restructuring. Hainan Airlines Holding raised its stake to 67.39% in the first half of 2026.

It shares Hainan's Fortune Wings Club frequent-flyer programme, but it holds its own operating certificate and flies under its own FU code. Under our rules its record counts here, not on the Hainan page, and Hainan's record does not count here.

Money is tight. Hainan's half-year report shows Fuzhou Airlines lost about CNY 114 million in the first six months of 2026 on revenue of CNY 1.39 billion, and its liabilities exceed its assets. We found no sign that this has touched safety. A small loss-making airline inside a large, solvent group is common in China, but it is worth watching.

What is on the record?

Almost nothing, and that cuts both ways. The Aviation Safety Network lists no event of any kind for Fuzhou Airlines. The only public incident we found is from 18 August 2016: a bird hit a pitot tube on a 737-800 climbing out of Fuzhou as flight FU6509 to Kunming. The crew got conflicting airspeed readings, stopped the climb, burned off fuel and landed back at Fuzhou. That is a routine event, handled by the book.

The airline also passed through the 737 MAX grounding. China grounded every MAX in March 2019. Fuzhou Airlines brought the first of its two MAX 8s back into scheduled service on 15 February 2023, on the Fuzhou to Zhengzhou route, after test flights in January. It was the third Chinese airline to fly the type again.

What we cannot see is the level below accidents. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) investigates most incidents itself and rarely publishes reports, and Fuzhou Airlines is too small to draw much coverage from the trade press. So we keep the incidents factor at 74, below Hainan's 78, rather than treat silence as a clean record.

Fleet: 737s only

The company lists 17 aircraft but not their types. Trade reports and incident records show only Boeing 737s: two 737 MAX 8s, and 737-800s, the most common airliner in China, for the rest. Fuzhou Airlines publishes no average age. Its parent's 233 Boeing 737s, spread across several airlines, average 11 years (June 2026), and Fuzhou Airlines started flying in 2014, so most of its jets are probably 8 to 12 years old, but we have not seen a figure to confirm that.

The Boeing 737 NG has a long and well-understood service history, and age matters less than maintenance. It costs points in our rubric because the type is an older design than the A320neo or the MAX, with fewer modern protections.

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. Fuzhou Airlines is an IATA member, 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. We score Chinese airlines with IOSA at 80 because the CAAC publishes few investigation reports.

Before you fly

• Summer flights from Fuzhou can be held or cancelled when a typhoon approaches the Fujian coast, usually from July to October. Book a later connection if you have one.
• Winter flights to or from Harbin often wait for de-icing, and snow can close the runway for a few hours. Do not try to save the time.
• If you fly a MAX, it is one of only two in the fleet, and it has flown in China since 2023 with the post-grounding software and training changes.

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. The all-737 fleet (72) and the thin public incident record (74) are the weakest factors, and both reflect missing data as much as anything we found.