China Southern last year outperformed airline giants Air China and China Eastern Airlines by carrying over 66 million passengers, which was more than a quarter of the passengers carried.
This was during a comparative boom time in that the passenger transportation volume of China Southern in 2009 increased 6.59 million passengers beyond 2008.
The airline must have been helped in handling that large number of passengers by the use of automatic check-in as shown in our illustration.
iStock Analyst reported its cargo and mail volume dropped slightly in 2009, totaling 86,000 tons, but its traffic turnover amounted to 10.08 billion ton-km, up 2.08 billion ton-km from 2008. Respectively, the two figures accounted for 19.3% and 23.6% of the industry’s total.