Competition in China’s civil aviation market is fierce. On the 8th, China Southern Airlines launched the ‘Boarding in 15 Minutes’ service, breaking the domestic aviation industry’s usual practice of closing check-in counters 30 to 40 minutes before departure. Passengers now only need to arrive at the boarding gate 15 minutes before takeoff to board.
According to Chinese media such as The Paper and Upstream News, starting from the 8th, all flights between Guangzhou and Beijing Daxing Airport operated by China Southern have completely eliminated the ‘check-in cut-off’ time and introduced the ‘Boarding in 15 Minutes’ service, a first in the Chinese civil aviation industry.
From now on, passengers do not need to worry about the flight boarding cut-off time; they only need to arrive at the boarding gate before the aircraft door closes, that is, 15 minutes before the scheduled departure time, to board.
According to the report, the ‘Boarding in 15 Minutes’ initiative uses intelligent technology upgrades and business transformation to compress the time to 15 minutes, breaking the usual practice of Chinese domestic airports closing boarding 30 to 40 minutes in advance.
This move has also quickly sparked heated discussion on Chinese social media, with netizens calling it ‘the most relaxed boarding policy ever’; others commented that in the future, catching a flight would be like catching a bus.
China’s civil aviation industry is still in a recovery phase, and last year, the three major airlines including China Southern were still operating at a loss, though the deficit has been significantly reduced.
The report noted that in this context, flights need to be more attractive to face fierce competition from other modes of transportation such as high-speed rail; reducing the boarding cut-off time and minimizing passengers' travel time costs has naturally become a crucial aspect of improving the ‘service experience’.
According to the report, the first to implement this was the Guangzhou-Beijing ‘China Southern Express’ route, which operates 28 round-trip flights daily with a high proportion of business travelers. The new policy will better accommodate travelers who need to reschedule at the last minute, make emergency business trips, catch early or late flights, and business frequent flyers, further enhancing the convenience of air travel.
However, the report also mentions that for passengers with checked baggage, the checked baggage processing time for this route remains 30 minutes before departure.
After the trial operation of ‘Boarding in 15 Minutes’ began on the 8th, China Southern intends to expand the service to more routes originating from Guangzhou in the future.