China Southern Boeing 787: first flights in June, Aussie flights by year's end?
By David Flynn, May 30 2013
China Southern has taken delivery of its first Boeing 787, with the Dreamliner's commercial debut planned for June 6th on a daily service between Guangzhou and Beijing (CZ3103/CZ3100) and the possibility of Australian flights before the year is out.
While the first 787 flights will take place within China, China Southern Executive Vice President Mr Chen Gang told Australian Business Traveller last month, but services from Guangzhou to Australia and Europe would follow.
"According to our initial plan, we will be using the 787 Dreamliners on the Canton Routes, for example European routes and also our routes to Australasia" Gang said.
Chen's use of 'Australasia' rather than just 'Australia' indicates that Auckland may be in line for a Boeing 787, along with its key Australian ports of Sydney and Melbourne (CZ also flies to Brisbane and Perth).
China Southern's 787 rollout pattern follows the same as adopted for the Airbus A380, with domestic flights coming ahead of international services.
If the airline's plans pan out, Australia could see four carriers all flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner by year's end.
Qatar remains in poll position, having previously cancelled the launch of the Perth-Doha Boeing 787 service just two weeks before its scheduled February 1st start when the Gulf carrier joined other airlines around the world in grounding the 787 after a series of critical overheating problems with the lithium-ion battery system.
Qatar is expected to soon announce a new start date for the daily Perth-Doha 787 route, which will let passengers fly Boeing’s next-gen jetliner all the way through to London.
Qantas partner Japan Airlines (JAL) will also begin a Boeing 787 service between Sydney and Tokyo from December 1st as part of the airline's expansion of its Dreamliner flights.
Jetstar has yet to commit to its Boeing 787 routes once its first Dreamliner arrives towards the end of September.
While Jetstar Group CEO Jayne Hrdlicka says the Dreamliners "will operate to destinations like Honolulu, Phuket and Tokyo which are currently serviced by our A330 aircraft", although many travellers hope that the Melbourne-Singapore route will be first cab off the rank.
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David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
20 May 2013
Total posts 14
Hopefully CZ Flies the 787 to Melbourne
Air China - Phoenix Miles
20 Dec 2012
Total posts 105
London and Vancouver first.
21 Apr 2013
Total posts 34
they should drop the a330s on all australian routes and put the a380 on sydney and put two daily 787s to brisbane and 2 daliy 787s to melbourne and also put one daliy 787 to perth also they should make cairns daliy
04 Nov 2010
Total posts 670
Wow Oliver, I bet China Southern is wishing they had hired you as their CEO, you've sorted out all their Australian operations in the blink of an eye.
The airline is getting five 787s this year and you think they should all be used on Australian routes? I think CZ has routes to rest of the world which might also benefit from a 787...
QFF
12 Apr 2013
Total posts 1560
Even if they put all their fleet to direct flights between Melbourne and any imaginable destinations, it still will not increase my desire to fly with them. YMMV. Cheers.
Thai Airways International - Royal Orchid Plus
16 May 2011
Total posts 111
Why on earth will BNE go straight to x2 daily? Its only x5 weekly at the moment. MEL I can understand as the flights are sitting at x10 weekly but go x2 Daily during peak season anyways and has a higher load factor and yield than BNE. CNS services only operate seasonally.
My bet is CZ 787 services to both MEL & SYD in the next 24 months.
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