Hainan Airlines

Is Hainan Airlines safe?

Yes. Hainan Airlines has flown since 1993 without a fatal 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 for it. That clean record across more than three decades, on a fleet that has grown to several hundred aircraft, is the main reason we score it 85, level with China Southern. The airline itself reports 33 years of continuous safe operation and 584,800 flying hours in the first half of 2026 alone.

The score stops short of the top group because of two things outside the airline's own record. The fleet is a little older than its big Chinese rivals', and China's regulator publishes far less about incidents than European or US regulators do, so we can see less of what happens below the level of an accident.

What is on the record?

Very little. The most serious event in the ASN data is from 7 November 2005, when a Dornier 328JET landed on the wrong runway at Korla, in Xinjiang, and struck cables. The aircraft was repaired; damage was estimated at US$900,000. No one was hurt.

We found no serious incident involving Hainan in the last ten years in the public sources we checked. In its 2026 half-year report, the airline says it had no incident of the "responsible incident or above" grade in the first half of the year. That is the airline's own claim, and the Chinese regulator (CAAC) does not publish the data needed to check it.

This is the main limit on any rating of a Chinese airline. In Europe, a tail strikeTail strikeWhen the tail of an aircraft touches the runway during take-off or landing, usually because the nose was raised too far or too early.More in the glossary or an evacuation usually produces a public investigation report. In China, the Civil Aviation Administration investigates most events itself and rarely publishes the result. We have kept the incidents factor at 78, a good score, rather than the 85 to 90 a fully documented clean record would earn.

Fleet: mostly Boeing, mid-life

Hainan Airlines Holding, which includes its subsidiary airlines, flew 367 aircraft at 30 June 2026, with an average age of 10.41 years:

Type	Aircraft	Average age
Boeing 737	233	11.0 years
Airbus A320 family	55	about 8 years
Boeing 787	37	9.6 years
Airbus A330	31	10.2 years
Embraer E190	8	16.5 years
COMAC C909	3	0.7 years

260 of the 367 aircraft are on operating leases. The fleet is about a year older on average than China Southern's (9.4 years) and China Eastern's (9.6 years), mainly because of the large 737 fleet. Age alone is a weak safety signal when maintenance is sound; it costs a few points under our rubric, not more.

Group airlines and oversight

Hainan Airlines Holding owns several regional airlines with their own operating certificates: Lucky Air (Kunming), Chang'an Airlines (Xi'an), Urumqi Air, Fuzhou Airlines, Beibu Gulf Airlines (Guangxi) and Shanxi Airlines. If your ticket says "operated by" one of them, it is a separate airline under the same regulator.

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. Hainan is an IATA member, which requires IOSA registrationIOSAThe 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. We keep oversight at 80 for all Chinese airlines because the CAAC publishes few investigation reports and has released no update on the 2022 China Eastern crash since March 2024.

Before you fly

• Summer and autumn flights to or from Haikou and Sanya can be delayed or cancelled when typhoons approach Hainan Island. Leave a spare day before an onward connection.
• Check the aircraft on long-haul routes. Flights to Europe and North America use 787s or A330s, both with good long-haul records.
• Winter flights to Urumqi and other northern cities may wait for de-icing. Let it happen; frost on the wings is a known cause of crashes.

How we scored it

The accident record (95) is the main strength: no fatal accident and 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 in 33 years. The fleet (76) is mid-life, and oversight (80) and incidents (78) are held down mainly by how little China's regulator publishes, not by known problems at Hainan.