China Southern Airlines, a subsidiary of China Southern Air Holding Company Ltd., has experienced a steady increase in daily transfer passengers at its Urumqi hub recently. Data shows that on September 3 and 4, China Southern Airlines handled more than 6,000 transfer passengers per day in Urumqi, marking a 33 percent increase over the 2024 peak and setting a new single-day record.
The surge is largely attributed to the start-of-term student travel peak, group tours and end-of-summer returns, highlighting Urumqi’s growing role as a key international aviation hub.
During the 2025 summer travel season, China Southern Airlines transported over 3.08 million passengers in Xinjiang. Thanks to the visa-free policies, international and regional routes also performed strongly. China Southern Airlines operated 19 international and regional routes in Xinjiang, carrying 177,000 passengers — a year-on-year increase of 57 percent.
As a core node in China’s comprehensive transport network, Urumqi International Aviation Hub has steadily enhanced its transfer service capabilities. This summer, China Southern Airlines opened four dedicated transfer channels at Urumqi, improved six key services, and optimized passenger and baggage flow management. During the summer peak, it handled 220,000 transfer passengers and 130,000 pieces of transfer baggage at Urumqi, achieving a same-day transfer completion rate of 99.7 percent.
The airline also piloted a “baggage-through service for international-to-domestic transfers” to streamline international transfer processes and introduced multilingual services, significantly enhancing the customs clearance experience and transfer efficiency for international passengers. During the summer travel season, China Southern Airlines handled 78,000 international transfer passengers via Urumqi, a year-on-year increase of 32.22 percent.
(Executive editor: Yuan Ting)
