China Southern Airlines
major airline in China, headquartered in Guangzhou, Guangdong

China Southern Airlines (branded as China Southern) is a major airline in China, headquartered in Guangzhou, Guangdong. It is one of the three major airlines in the country, along with Air China and China Eastern Airlines.
Established on 1 July 1988 following the restructuring of CAAC that acquired and merged several domestic airlines. Since then, the airline became the world's sixth-largest airline measured by passengers carried and Asia's largest airline in fleet size, revenue, and passengers carried. In 2024, it ranked as the world's ninth-largest airline by brand market value.
With its main hubs at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport and Beijing Daxing International Airport, the airline operates more than 2,000 flights to more than 200 destinations daily and was a member of SkyTeam until 1 January 2019. The airline started a frequent flyer program partnership with American Airlines in March 2019. The logo of the airline consists of a kapok flower (which is also the city flower of Guangzhou) on a blue tail fin. The company slogan is Fly towards your dreams. The airline also operates cargo flights branded under the name China Southern Cargo.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “China Southern Airlines” as major airline in China, headquartered in Guangzhou, Guangdong. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as major airline in China, headquartered in Guangzhou, Guangdong. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q291090. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988, 2024 and 2019.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “China Southern Airlines” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.