China Southern Airlines (CZ, Guangzhou) has submitted an application to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) for permission to establish a base in the south-western city of Chengdu Shuangliu.

Though the move was originally mentioned in July last year, the decision to proceed with the application has been deferred to allow for the launch of China Southern's first longhaul service from the airport this August - a 3x weekly service to Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta via Guangzhou.

Chengdu is currently a base for several other Chinese carriers including Air China (CA, Beijing Capital), Sichuan Airlines (3U, Chengdu Shuangliu), Chengdu Airlines (EU, Chengdu Shuangliu), China Eastern Airlines (MU, Shanghai Hongqiao), Lucky Air (China) (8L, Dali City), Tibet Airlines (TV, Lhasa), and Shenzhen Airlines (ZH, Shenzhen).

China Southern already operates around 40 daily domestic flights from Chengdu right now.