Hunan Airlines (Air Travel)

Is Hunan Airlines safe?

Yes, on the evidence available. Hunan Airlines, which flies as Air Travel under the code A6, has had no accident of any kind and has not lost an aircraft since its first flight in May 2016. Its 17 Airbus A320-family jets are young, at an average of 6.7 years in December 2025. We score it 81.

The caveats are about what we cannot see. The airline is not on IATA's registry of airlines that passed its safety audit (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), which we searched on 28 October 2026, and China's regulator, the CAAC, publishes little about incidents. Ten years is also a short record for a small airline. That puts it level with Kunming Airlines (81) and below Spring Airlines (86), which is not an IATA member either but is on the IOSA registry and has a much longer record.

Who runs Hunan Airlines?

The airline started in Yunnan as Hongtu Airlines (红土航空, "red soil airline"), named after the red soil of Yunnan. It received its operating certificate in May 2016 and began flying from Kunming that month. It later took the English name Air Travel, which is still its English callsign and part of its English company name, Air Travel Co., Ltd.

Private investors set it up with no airline experience among them. In 2017 the online travel agency Tongcheng bought in, and in 2020 a Hunan provincial investment fund became the second-largest shareholder, with Tongcheng keeping 51% (Yicai, July 2020). The airline then moved its main base to Changsha Huanghua airport on 1 December 2020 and became Hunan Airlines (湖南航空), the province's first home-based airline. It still runs many flights from Kunming and Wuxi.

Hunan Airlines operates under its own certificate and code. It is not part of China Southern, which also has a large Hunan branch at Changsha, and none of the big three groups' records count here.

What does Hunan Airlines fly?

Only the Airbus A320 family. The fleet grew from 12 aircraft when it moved to Changsha to 16 by late 2025, with an average age of 6.7 years, and a 17th, an A320neo, arrived on 10 December 2025. The newer aircraft are A320neos with 186 seats, all economy.

That is a good fleet for safety. The A320 family is 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 and flown by hundreds of airlines. One family also keeps pilot training and maintenance simple for a small airline. The fleet scores 88, level with Spring Airlines, whose all-A320 fleet is a little older but much larger.

Where does it fly?

The network is mostly domestic and mostly regional. In the winter 2026 schedule the airline flies 35 routes to 30 Chinese cities, 18 of them touching Hunan. From Changsha it flies to Beijing, Xiamen, Haikou and Wenzhou, but also to smaller and harder airports: Baoshan, Mangshi, Lijiang and Xishuangbanna in Yunnan, Xining on the Qinghai plateau and Turpan in Xinjiang. From Wuxi it also serves Tongren in the Guizhou hills. On 23 September 2026 it opened its first international route, Changsha to Bangkok, three times a week.

The Yunnan side of the network matters most. Kunming sits on a high plateau, and airports such as Lijiang and Baoshan are surrounded by mountains, with weather that can change within an hour. Changsha itself has heavy summer storms and winter fog. The airline's own advice for the summer season was to expect frequent changes from thunderstorms. We score the environment 70, a little above Kunming Airlines (66), which flies far more of its schedule in Yunnan.

What do we know about incidents?

Very little, and that is part of the score. We found no report of a serious incident, fine or grounding, and AeroInside, which tracks incidents for most airlines, has no entry for it. The airline itself says it had no incident caused by its own operation in the five years after its move to Changsha. That is its own claim, and the CAAC publishes few investigation reports, so we cannot test it. As with other small Chinese airlines with thin public data, such as Beibu Gulf Airlines, we score incidents 74 rather than calling the record clean.

How we scored it

The accident record (87) and the young A320 fleet (88) are the strengths. Oversight (76) is four points below Chinese airlines on the 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 registry, and incidents (74) reflect missing data more than known events. The Yunnan mountain airports keep the environment at 70. Overall 81.

If you book a Yunnan route in summer, such as Changsha to Lijiang or Baoshan, check the flight status on the morning you fly. The airline itself warns that thunderstorms change its schedule often in that season, and a delay or a rebooking is a far better outcome than a landing pressed on in bad weather.