China Winter Fog Delays Flights At Major Hubs

Published on Nov 26, 2025, 1:47 pm CST

9 min read

Key points

Heavy fog, ATC flow limits, and radar glitches caused 554 delays and 58 cancellations across major Chinese hubs on November 19, 2025
Beijing Capital, Shanghai Pudong, Chengdu Shuangliu, Xiamen, Shenzhen, and Kunming have seen repeated waves of cancellations and delays since mid November
Chinese airlines are running near or above 2019 domestic capacity, leaving little slack when fog and ATC restrictions hit key hubs
Civil airspace in China is tightly controlled, so rerouting options are limited when weather and technical issues stack up
Tight winter connections via China are especially risky on early morning and late evening banks that depend on short turnarounds
Travelers should add longer buffers, avoid separate tickets, and consider alternative hubs outside mainland China where practical

Impact

Where Delays Are Most Likely: Risk is highest at Beijing Capital, Shanghai Pudong, Chengdu Shuangliu, Xiamen, Shenzhen, and Kunming during foggy early mornings and busy evening banks in the winter season
Best Times To Fly: Midday departures and arrivals, and flights with generous connection times, are less exposed to radiation fog and overnight curfews than first wave or late night services
Connections And Misconnect Risk: Same day connections under two hours via Chinese hubs in winter carry elevated misconnect risk, especially when domestic legs feed international long haul departures
Onward Travel And Changes: Passengers with tight onward rail or tour departures should assume knock on delays from China connections and build in extra time or flexible tickets at the next stop
What Travelers Should Do Now: Recheck winter itineraries via China, lengthen connection windows, stay on single tickets when possible, and price alternative routings via hubs like Seoul, Tokyo, or Singapore

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China winter fog flight delays are already testing the country's aviation recovery, as low visibility and traffic flow controls at Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK), Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG), and Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport (CTU) produced about 554 delayed flights and 58 cancellations in a single day on November 19, 2025. The same mix of heavy fog, level three weather warnings, and intermittent radar problems at China's central flow control center has contributed to further waves of disruption in subsequent tracking periods, including another 110 cancellations and 546 delays across 13 airlines. For travelers using Chinese hubs purely as transit points, that pattern means higher odds of missed connections, long tarmac holds, and surprise overnight stays, so winter itineraries now need bigger buffers and more conservative routing choices.

Taken together, these winter fog disruptions and air traffic control bottlenecks mean that China winter fog flight delays are no longer isolated one day events but a recurring pattern at key hubs, so travelers should treat connections via mainland China as higher risk options throughout the 2025 to 2026 winter spring flight season.

How The November 19 Fog Shock Played Out

Visa and airport disruption trackers describe a sharp drop in visibility on November 19 that triggered a Civil Aviation Administration of China level three weather bulletin, followed by traffic flow restrictions that throttled departures and arrivals at Beijing Capital, Shanghai Pudong, and Chengdu Shuangliu. As delays accumulated, CAAC acknowledged "intermittent radar instability" at the national flow control center, which further constrained how quickly controllers could rebuild normal spacing and runway throughput.

The worst congestion concentrated in the main northern and western hubs. Beijing Capital saw long departure queues and diversions, while Shanghai Pudong and Chengdu Shuangliu also recorded large clusters of late and cancelled flights. Secondary airports such as Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport (XMN), Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport (SZX), and Kunming Changshui International Airport (KMG) felt the knock on effects as aircraft and crews missed rotations or arrived late for subsequent sectors.

A few days later, separate data compilations showed another disruption window with 110 cancellations and 546 delays across 13 carriers, led by Air China, China Eastern Airlines, and China Southern Airlines, confirming that the November 19 fog shock was part of a wider strain on operations rather than a one off fluke. For passengers, that translates into longer lines at transfer desks, more lottery style rebooking, and more time spent waiting for aircraft and crews to be repositioned.

Why Winter Fog Is Such A Problem For Chinese Hubs

The meteorology is not new. Studies of the Yangtze River Delta and Sichuan Basin show that dense radiation fog and haze are common in late autumn and winter, especially during stagnant high pressure periods with weak winds and strong temperature inversions. Airports around Shanghai, Nanjing, Chengdu, and Chongqing therefore enter each winter with a known risk of multi day low visibility episodes that limit runway use and require increased separation between aircraft.

What has changed is the amount of traffic trying to push through that airspace. According to VariFlight's September 2025 summary, China's domestic flights were already about 7.11 percent above the same month in 2019, while domestic seat supply exceeded 65 million seats for the month and international regional capacity continued to climb. CAAC and state media also highlight that the 2025 to 2026 winter spring schedule will see more than 21,000 weekly international flights to and from China, up 10.8 percent year on year. That means more aircraft and more passengers are now exposed when fog shuts down a runway or radar problems slow the flow of traffic.

Structural airspace constraints add another layer. Less than 30 percent of China's airspace is accessible for civilian use, with the rest reserved for the military, which leaves airlines dependent on narrow corridors and fixed routes that are harder to work around when weather or technical issues hit. When you mix high traffic density, limited rerouting flexibility, and winter fog, even a short radar outage or flow control measure can ripple into dozens of late flights.

Which Hubs And Airlines Look Most Fragile This Season

Based on the November 19 pattern and the follow up tracking period, travelers should assume that Beijing Capital, Shanghai Pudong, and Chengdu Shuangliu are the most vulnerable hubs on foggy days, with Xiamen, Shenzhen, and Kunming as secondary trouble spots. These are airports that combine heavy domestic banks, important international connections, and geography that favors fog and haze.

VariFlight's data notes that Shanghai Pudong currently tops the country for total movements and international traffic, while Beijing's airports handle some of the busiest domestic city pairs in the network. When disruptions hit here, they do not just affect China origin and destination travel, they also knock on to long haul connections to Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.

Operationally, state controlled giants like Air China, China Eastern Airlines, and China Southern Airlines have both the most capacity and the most to lose in punctuality metrics. They will generally prioritize rebuilding their core domestic trunk routes first, then layer in recovery for international and regional flights. Smaller carriers such as XiamenAir, Shenzhen Airlines, and Tibet Airlines may see proportionally higher schedule thinning or more aggressive re timing, especially for less profitable routes.

For foreign travelers, that means itineraries that depend on a single daily connection or that route through secondary Chinese hubs could be harder to recover when something goes wrong, compared with flights on mainline trunk routes with multiple daily frequencies.

Planning Connections Through China In Winter

For the 2025 to 2026 winter season, the safest approach is to treat Chinese hubs as high risk connecting points whenever fog is in the forecast, especially if your first leg is domestic within China. As a starting rule of thumb, aim for at least three hours between flights when you connect from a Chinese domestic sector onto an international long haul, and four hours or more if your inbound leg touches one of the fog prone airports highlighted above.

Early morning departures are a particular red flag, because radiation fog is most likely just before and after sunrise. Evening and late night departures can also be tricky because they bump up against airport curfews or night noise restrictions at other airports in East Asia and Europe. Midday connections, when the boundary layer usually mixes out the worst fog, are less glamorous from a fare perspective but often deliver better on time performance.

Whenever possible, keep your entire trip on a single ticket issued by one airline or alliance. That ensures the carrier has a clear duty to reaccommodate you if delays or cancellations cause a misconnect. Separate tickets that mix, for example, a Chinese domestic low cost segment and a long haul ticket bought from a different carrier are much more exposed, since each airline can claim the missed connection is not their responsibility. Our broader guide on managing misconnects and involuntary rerouting can help clarify your options in these situations. How To Protect Yourself From Missed Connections On Long Haul Trips.

If your priority is reliability over price, price out alternative routings that connect in Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, or Singapore instead of mainland Chinese hubs, even if it means an extra stop or slightly longer journey. These airports also see fog and storms at times, but their airspace is less restricted and their winter fog risk is generally lower than in the Yangtze River Delta and Sichuan Basin.

When It Still Makes Sense To Use Chinese Hubs

Despite the current strain, travelers should not automatically write off China as a transit option. If you are flying nonstop between your origin and a Chinese city, winter fog mostly translates into departure or arrival delays rather than missed connections. The real pain comes when you need to make a tight connection inside China, or when a delayed domestic leg threatens your onward long haul flight.

Connections can still be reasonable where you have a long layover, strong protection on a single ticket, and some flexibility at your final destination. For example, a flight from Europe to Beijing Capital, then onward to a secondary Chinese city later that night, will be much safer if you have five or six hours on the ground and can tolerate arriving a day late if needed.

Travelers heading to Japan, Korea, or Southeast Asia who are tempted by cheap China connections should now weigh those savings against higher disruption risk. If you are already concerned about capacity cuts and cancellations on China Japan routes after Beijing's recent travel warning and schedule reductions, it may be smarter to book nonstop or connect through non Chinese hubs instead. For broader context there, see our separate coverage, China Japan Travel Warning Slashes Flights And Tourist Flows.

How This Winter Compares With Pre Pandemic Seasons

Pre pandemic winters also produced fog related disruptions in eastern China, but they played out against a smaller, less interconnected network. In 2019, domestic traffic was already high, yet current VariFlight and CAAC figures show that flight volumes and seats are now slightly above those benchmarks on domestic routes, while international frequencies are ramping up aggressively.

At the same time, China is still working through long running airspace bottlenecks and ATC modernization efforts that have been flagged for more than a decade as causes of chronic delays. The November 19 radar instability incident illustrates how fragile that system can be when technology and weather challenges coincide.

For travelers, the practical bottom line is that this winter's China fog season is operating on a tighter margin than in the late 2010s, with more aircraft in the sky, more ambitious international schedules, and a network that still has limited ability to route around problems. Planning conservatively is therefore less about pessimism and more about acknowledging how much complexity and volume the system is carrying.