Airline showcases reliability on China Brand Day
A China Southern Airlines employee demonstrates an evacuation training with virtual reality glasses at the exhibition today, the China Brand Day.
China’s leading airline launched an exhibition at the Exposition on China Indigenous Brand 2021 in Shanghai today, marking the annual China Brand Day.
China Southern Airlines, the largest carrier in Asia based on fleet size, was the only civil aviation company at the expo to showcase the reliability and vitality of domestic carriers.
The independent exhibition hall at the Shanghai Exhibition Center features the airline’s development blueprint at Daxing International Airport in Beijing, as well as virtual reality (VR) technology enabling visitors to experience flight-attendant training.
The Guangzhou-based carrier operates a fleet of 860 aircraft, and transports 152 million travelers around the globe every year.
The airline's on-time rate reached 89.88 percent in 2020, making it the most punctual carrier among China’s three largest airlines — Air China, China Southern and China Eastern — for the third consecutive year.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, China Southern allocated about 18,000 flights to transport 25,000 medical workers, 2.9 tons of supplies and repatriate 24,000 Chinese from around the world.
The airline has shared its COVID-19 prevention experiences with around 290 airlines globally, according to the exhibition.
China Southern has become the largest carrier based at Daxing International Airport, the new mega airport in Beijing, accounting for half of its operations. It also runs Asia’s largest hangar, as well as the airport's operation control center and aviation food production line.
China Southern's stand-alone exhibition hall.
By 2025, the airline plans to base 200 aircraft at Daxing — with 900 daily flights — to help develop the airport into a world-class civil aviation hub.
It is using the ARJ21, China’s first domestically developed regional jet, on flights within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.
As a highlight of the exhibition, visitors can try to repair an aircraft or serve passengers in the air by wearing VR glasses.
The glasses developed by China Southern's Shanghai branch have been widely used during maintenance-staff training. Details of common aircraft types, such as the Airbus 320, and engines have been copied into VR scenes in the glasses.
Staff are trained by wearing VR glasses, which can help reduce training costs and ensure safety, said Xiong Min, a senior flight-attendant trainer with China Southern.
She demonstrated a new training session to visitors — an evacuation at sea — with VR glasses.
“We used to learn the evacuation procedure from textbooks, and it was hard for new crew members to understand and remember without practice,” Xiong said.
She added the VR sessions have solved those problems, and helped flight crews quickly familiarize themselves with the process.
The annual China Brand Day event and the Exposition on China Indigenous Brand was initiated in Shanghai in 2018, after the State Council approved the establishment of "China Brand Day" on May 10 every year.
The year’s event runs through Wednesday with the theme "China Brand, World Sharing; Focusing on Dual Circulation to Unleash New Consumption Trends."
A model of China Southern's flagship Boeing 787 aircraft.
