China Southern’s 23 hour delay

My last flight with China Southern from Hong Kong to Beijing took 23 hours instead of 3.

Scheduled departure was 13:20. 3 hours later, still waiting at the airport, the flight CZ309 was transferred to another gate. After another 4 hours passengers were told that instead of direct flight stopover in Changsha is necessary to replace the crew because the crew was tired. Some passengers did not agree with this change and they asked to fly next day so their luggage had to be unloaded from the plane which took another 2 hours. When we finally landed in Changsha the replacement crew did not board the plane. The flight was changed from international to domestic and passengers were asked to go through Chinese immigration control and pick up their luggage which took 2 hours. After bus transfer to another terminal at Changsha airport passengers checked in to flight CZ309 again and passed another security check. At 10 AM, after 8 hours waiting on board, other passengers boarded the plane to fly to Beijing. The flight CZ309 landed in Beijing after 23 hours of scheduled departure.

Other airlines landed at Beijing airport and also other flights departed from Changsha to Beijing ahead of flight CZ309.

According to Chinese law passengers are supposed to receive 300 RMB compensation if the flight delay is 6 hours. Some of the passengers missed their flights from Beijing because of this delay. China Southern neither provided help at that time to those passengers nor has offered any compensation. Because of luggage unload in Hong Kong some of the passengers missed their luggage in Beijing.

China Southern, member of Sky Team alliance, is the biggest airline company in Asia with 422 airplanes and 121 destinations. It is also airline with probably not the best customer service.