boonkoh

Looking to book a China Southern flight, from LHR to MEL via CAN (Guangzhou Baiyun airport). I gather that my bags should be checked in all the way as it is an international to international transfer.

The ticket I'm looking at has a 2 hour layover - is this long enough? FYI I'm flying on 24th Dec (shouldn't be too busy in China?)

Worried that there might be lots of queues - do you have to go through immigration for example? Security checks?

jiejie

Yes your bags will be checked all the way through and you should get all your boarding passes in LHR. Upon arrival, you'll go to a special Immigration desk for International Transfers, it's an abbreviated document check that doesn't involve databases and passport stamping. You will have to go through another security queue but then back airside. A 2-hour connection is easily doable as long as the LHR-CAN segment is on-time or not more than 30 minutes late. Dec 24th is like any other day for the Chinese, but you might have a lot of expats flying out--however, they would be going through a separate process stream if originating in CAN rather than connecting. I personally would feel comfortable booking this flight sequence/ connection.