Off to a flying start

China Southern Airlines, one of China's three major airlines, is expecting to enhance new quality productive forces to promote its high-quality development by deepening reform in the months to come.

Ma Xulun, Party chief and chairman of China Southern Air Holding, said his airline will vigorously eliminate institutional and mechanism barriers and continue to promote technological innovation, industrial innovation and innovative development methods to explore the path of new quality productive forces according to local conditions through deepening reforms.

"The airline will spare no effort to promote its high-quality development and advance toward world-class status so it can better serve the major development strategies of the country more efficiently," he said.

The civil aviation industry is a technology-intensive industry of great complexity, Ma said, adding that accelerating the achievement of high-level technological self-reliance and self-improvement is the only way to promote high-quality development.

China Southern Airlines has constructed a sound system and mechanism for scientific and technological innovation and has established a department of science and technology information and process management as well as innovation platforms such as its key laboratory of artificial intelligence and the civil aviation maintenance engineering technology research center, Ma said.

The airline provides medium and long-term incentives for major projects to strengthen the deep cooperation between industry, academia, research and application, he added.

"The aim is to further enhance the value transformation ability of intellectual property rights such as patents, and vigorously promote major scientific and technological innovations in aviation," he said.

Core values

Ma said the airline adheres to its core values of "safety first and being customer-oriented". It takes the deep integration of digital technology and safe operations as its priorities, and it always strives to strengthen its capabilities to prevent safety risks and comprehensively enhance its safety governance capabilities so it can provide sustainable and high-quality safe services.

In particular, the use of technological means to prevent major system failures in aircraft maintenance has shifted from traditional preventive maintenance to predictive maintenance, Ma said.

The Guangzhou-based airline has independently developed the world's first aircraft diagnosis system, which is compatible with the models of the mainstream aircraft manufacturers: Airbus, Boeing, and Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, or COMAC.

The airline has established a standard system for monitoring the entire life cycle of aircraft using big data, filling the gap in this Chinese civil aviation field by providing "remote diagnosis" for aircraft.

Last year, the system issued a total of 721 fault warning notifications and the number of abnormal flights caused by critical systems decreased by 53 percent when comparing to the figure in 2019.

The reliability rates of China Southern Airlines' various aircraft types were among the highest in the world, helping it rank first in the normal flight rate among major domestic airlines for eight consecutive years, maintaining its best safety record for domestic airlines. It is the first airline in China to receive the "Three Star Diamond Award for Flight Safety".

Rich experience

China Southern Airlines, which has the most developed route network and the largest annual passenger volume in China, has rich experience in aircraft operation, especially in operating domestic ARJ21 aircraft for years.

Relying on its own scale advantages and technical strength, it has deepened its cooperation with COMAC in maintenance capability development, component manufacturing, and aircraft monitoring systems, and jointly carries out technological innovation cooperation projects such as ARJ21 passenger to cargo design scheme development, component manufacturing, and aircraft system modification.

In April, the airline signed purchase agreements with COMAC to order 100 domestically developed single-aisle C919 planes.

The first C919 jet commenced commercial operation in September, while the rest will be delivered for operation in batches between 2024 and 2031. Their flight destinations will mainly cover routes from Guangzhou to Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Xi'an in the following years, Ma said.

China Southern Airlines Logistics has 17 Boeing-777 cargo planes, making it the largest wide-body cargo aircraft operator in China. Its cargo and mail transport volume increased by 21.5 percent year-on-year in 2023.

The airline has, so far, undertaken five domestic civil aircraft maintenance engineering research projects and two component manufacturing research and development projects, plus another two composite material new process and new technology maintenance research projects.

Green travel

The airline is committed to the pursuit of green travel. Based on the "China Southern Airlines e-Travel" app, the airline has launched "Green Flight" products, including electronic tickets and electronic boarding passes.

The airline has also digitized various business documents and online special applications, significantly reducing the use of paper vouchers for passengers during air travel.

It also provides the world's first "green flight on-demand dining service", which obtains passengers' dining needs in advance.

The airline has built a full-process tracking platform to realize flexible and adjustable meal quantities, and provide real-time responses to meal queries.

The smart dining services have so far served demand from more than 4.86 million passengers.

The airline is also taking steps to ensure the precise and controllable consumption of energy so as reduce its use.

In 2023, through measures such as route optimization, precise loading and green flights, the airline has saved a total of 175,100 metric tons of fuel and reduced carbon emissions by 551,600 tons, allowing more people to enjoy greener flight journeys.

ZHENG CAIXIONG in Guangzhou