In the new era, China Southern Air Holding Company Ltd. (CSAH) has embraced dual strategies: upgrading its core business and implementing forward-looking industrial layouts. This strategy enables the company to effectively seize opportunities and address challenges brought by the global industrial and supply chain transformations in the air transport system.
Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), CSAH has actively served national strategies, focusing on areas such as hub network, smart aviation, and safety ecosystem to create a new aviation ecosystem. Guided by technological innovation, CSAH has laid out a modern civil aviation industry system with professional insight. By scientifically applying advanced management tools and coordinating its operations for the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) with comprehensive deepening reforms, CSAH is exploring new paths for performance growth.
Since the 14th Five-Year Plan, CSAH has developed Guangzhou and Beijing as core hubs and Urumqi as a gateway hub, enhancing differentiated development with high-speed rail network to leverage regional network advantages. CSAH’s network now covers 172 passenger routes and 7 freight routes, reaching 68 cities in 38 countries along the Belt and Road, making the company the largest air carrier in the Belt and Road framework.
While consolidating its B2C service advantages, CSAH is expanding B2B services, pioneering customized international routes, such as the Shenzhen-Mexico direct passenger flight to support Chinese manufacturing industry globally.
In November 2025, CSAH successfully promoted the inclusion of the Renminbi (RMB) in the international air transport clearing currency system, a crucial step for RMB internationalization. Globally, CSAH provides multi-faceted services like aircraft maintenance and in-flight catering for over 60 clients such as Vietnam Airlines and Air Astana. It also initiated a civil aviation maintenance cooperation along the Belt and Road, fostering regional cooperation based on shared development and mutual benefit.
CSAH is transforming from a traditional air carrier into a modern integrated logistics solution provider, building a world-class wide-body freighter fleet renowned for its operational efficiency. It is also developing an integrated smart logistics platform, a key project under the national initiative to strengthen and complete the networks of comprehensive freight hubs.
CSAH is promoting air-truck, air-rail, and air-sea multimodal transport to reshape the multi-dimensional transportation service system across industries. It is developing overseas warehousing, e-commerce, and last-mile delivery networks for integrated end-to-end global contractual capacity. In 2024, cargo and mail transportation volume along the Belt and Road routes increased by over 40 percent compared to 2019, significantly enhancing the resilience of Chinese companies' international supply chains.
CSAH is strengthening its foundation for secure development by benchmarking against world-class safety management standards. It is improving its seven major safety systems, systematically addressing safety hazards, and solidifying the qualifications and capabilities of its professional teams. It has successfully responded to new challenges such as security for newly opened international routes, increased aviation material reserves, and developed a green circular economy through initiatives like aircraft disassembly.
By leveraging technology to enhance safety, CSAH is advancing the R&D and application of domestic alternativesacross various fields, achieving independent control over key systems. Its risk resilience in complex environments continues to improve significantly, with safety performance consistently ranking among the industry's best, firmly upholding the bottom line of guarding the absolute safety for civil aviation operation and for people's lives.
The company maintains high-level investment in R&D and has applied to implement various national key R&D projects. Its independently developed high-end visual system has made China the third country in the world to master this technology. Major achievements like the "Tian Tong" system have been listed in the recommended catalog of scientific and technological innovation achievements of central State-owned enterprises and mandated for promotion by the civil aviation authority.
Advancing high-level self-reliance and independent control in civil aviation, CSAH has independently developed the "Tian Ji"flight planning system, achieving independent control over the entire business chain of flight operation control. It has also developed key ground support equipment and systems such as the localized auxiliary power unit (APU)test bench. Efforts to nurture "Master Craftsmen"and establish 12 innovation consortia have fostered an open and collaborative innovation ecosystem. CSAH has developed China Southern e-Travel, a one-stop, full-process service solution, which helps make smart travel easy to realize with the concept of "all services accessible on one device for a worry-free journey."
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, CSAH actively expanded into high-end aviation equipment manufacturing, establishing businesses focused on flight simulator manufacturing, aircraft maintenance, and digital technology. The company successfully developed and began exporting flight simulators for multiple aircraft types. CSAH has also built the world's largest maintenance capability system for narrow-body aircraft engines, with over 70 percent of its capacity serving external clients. It also overcame technical challenges in maintaining high-end components like APUs.
Building on Shantou Airlines innovative models of domestic aircraft operations, CSAH is fostering the development of the domestic large aircraft industry. It also accelerated the development of import-substitution parts, obtaining 4,041 airworthiness certifications during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, thus providing solid support for the security of the industrial chain.
(Executive editor: Yuan Ting)
