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Trip Verified | China Southern Airlines were an absolute nightmare. My flight from Sydney to Guangzhou was redirected to Hainan due to ‘bad weather’ in Guangzhou. We were not allowed off the plane and had to sit and wait for 7 hours until ‘the weather cleared up’ (even though our connecting flight took off an hour before we finally arrived in Guangzhou so we think they overbooked the flight). They had to ration food and drinks because stock was limited. When we finally arrived in Guangzhou, we spent over 150 AUD on the lounge in the airport as we had to wait for another 4 hours for the new flight they put us on to Ho Chi Minh and we were exhausted and wanted to sleep, shower and eat as the airlines did not provide any facilities or food during this stopover. Because of this delay my sister and myself missed out on a full day in Ho Chi Minh. The 4 hour delay for the flight back home from Hanoi to Guangzhou causing us to miss our connecting flight to Sydney created absolute chaos. We had to wait in a queue in Guangzhou airport at 11pm with hundreds of other passengers with missed connecting flights for over 2 hours. They finally announced there were no more flights back to Australia that night and that they would process everyone one day visas and provide accomodation for the night. By the time all this was processed it was 2am and we were told we needed to be back at the airport at 6am in order to queue to be put on standby for flights back to Australia. We ended up staying in the airport all night (which we were entirely unprepared for as the airport was freezing cold and we were in summer clothes and we did not have Chinese Yuan so had to pay for tea in the morning with our Australian debit cards which gave us a terrible exchange rate and there was no free clean drinking water in the airport) and from 5:30am had to wait another 2 hours in a queue until we were told there were no more seats available for any flights back to Australia until the 1st May. This was on the 28th April (our original flight was meant to be on the 27th April). China Southern’s customer service was terrible, there was barely any communication, there were parents with children waiting in the queue and people with no access to internet as China blocks access to people without WeChat. No refunds or flights with other airlines were offered, and it was expected that you come back to the airport from your accommodation everyday to get another day visa until a flight opened up. This is when my sister and I decided to make our own way back home, which took 4 days in total. The only affordable option home was through Hong Kong, Singapore and Gold Coast. We are now 2,000 AUD out of pocket due to booking new flights and other expenses such as meals and water, data roaming and taxi fares. We are both exhausted and came down with colds due to the chilly air conditioned airports and had to take 2 extra days of annual leave. Hopefully our travel insurance covers us for all this but there were plenty people who did not have travel insurance or internet and who may still be waiting in Guangzhou for a flight back to Australia today. I will never fly with China Southern again.