China Southern: no Brisbane lounge for business class passengers

Business class travellers and SkyTeam Elite Plus members jetting to Guangzhou with China Southern will now find themselves without airport lounge access in Brisbane.

The airline previously sent its premium passengers to the Air New Zealand lounge in Brisbane, but which is soon to be closed or at least temporarily reduced in size to allow for much-needed refurbishment works.

Instead, these passengers will each receive a $40 voucher to Brisbane River Grill – a new restaurant and bar located past security and near the departure gate normally used by China Southern.

A China Southern spokesperson confirmed the arrangement with Australian Business Traveller, noting that “the restaurant is just as good as our previous lounge, if not better”, and that the voucher scheme was a stop-gap measure “while other lounges are under construction”.

With flight CZ382 pushing back at 9:55am, $40 is more than enough to cover an Eggs Benedict with ham, salmon or mushroom, a fresh serve of orange juice and a glass of sparkling wine with change to spare.

Download: Brisbane River Grill menu [PDF, 2.5MB]

Brisbane Airport Corporation also offers travellers complimentary wireless Internet within the restaurant and terminal areas, with its download limit of 500MB per user sufficient to cover basic tasks such as web browsing and sending and receiving emails with attachments.

Meanwhile, an all-new Plaza Premium Lounge is also scheduled to open by year’s end in Brisbane’s international terminal.

Lounge access arrangements in China Southern’s other Australian ports remain unaffected, with Sydneysiders having access to the SkyTeam lounge and those departing from Melbourne and Perth to the Qantas lounges by special arrangement.

Also read: China Southern axes first class on Brisbane flights

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Chris C.

Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.