China Southern Airlines is the world’s sixth-largest airline based on passengers carried, and Asia’s largest in both passengers carried and fleet size. It is based at Guangzhou, but also operates a hub at Beijing Capital International. It was dounded on July 1, 1988 as an outgrowth of CAAC. It’s main competitors are China’s other “Big Three” airlines Air China and China Eastern. China Southern is a member of SkyTeam Alliance. CZ operates a massive fleet approaching 450 aircraft from A319s to A380s (which are also operated domestically).China Southern operates 8 Airbus A330-300s with 6 on order and 15 of the smaller A330-200s with 1 on order. This particular example is an Airbus A330-300 which features 4 lie-flat seats in 1 row of First, 48 seats in a 2-2-2 config in Business Class, and 208 economy seats in a 2-4-2 configuration for a total of 284 seats. These photos were taken on the quick 2 ½ hour flight 3908 from Shanghai’s domestic airport, Hongqiao to Beijing Capital Airport in July, 2012. The roomy First Class Suites feature a seat pitch of 78”/26” width, Business Class are generous at 74” pitch/20” width and also lie-flat, Premium Economy has 37” pitch/17.2” width and Regular Economy is also generous at 35”/17.2” width of pitch. Interestingly personal TV IFE’s are only in First and Business on the Airbus A330s. Economy shares overhead monitors. Regardless, the selection of video and music titles on domestic flights at least, are very limited particularly to Western tastes. There are high-quality destination videos and duty free shopping on the IFE’s. The quality of food, menu selections, and very accommodating service are world class. Interestingly though on our 12:00pm flight, the only alcohol offered was beer. The short flight aboard was very nice with the only issues being the IFE system resetting and the non-functioning moving map.
