China Southern has rolled out another upgrade to its Australian services, with today's debut of the airline's latest Airbus A330 on its Sydney-Guangzhou flight.
The aircraft includes fully lie-flat beds in business class, replacing the current angled lie-flat design for a better trip to the airline's hub at Guangzhou and back.
Read: Flat out fibbing? We explain the lie-flat lie
Already seen on China Southern's flights from Brisbane and Perth, the new seats feature on the morning Sydney-Guangzhou CZ326 service, although they'll be most appreciated on the overnight CZ325 return leg.
This is the same flight which from October 28 will play host to China Southern's Airbus A380, at which point the Sydney-Guangzhou afternoon service (CZ301/302) is tipped to inherit the new A330.
Further down the track Sydney is also tipped to see China Southern's Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the airline says.
Read: China Southern reveals Boeing 787 schedule: China, Europe, Australasia
The new fully-flat seats fold down to 188 cm (6 feet 2 inches) in bed mode.
In terms of width, you've got a reasonable 51 cm (20 inches) to spread out, while the 2-2-2 cabin layout means that there's no middle seat.
You'll be entertained with a 38 cm (15 in) screen during the flights, while there are also in-seat screens for every traveller in economy.
Melbourne's daily CZ service to Guangzhou will also be upgraded to an Airbus A330-300 with the new seats by the end of October.
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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.
28 Oct 2011
Total posts 645
CZs horizontal(ish) lie flat seating is actually going to be more of a hassle for the window pax, as the aisle pax legs/feet are going to be higher (than sloped beds) for window pax to 'navigate' over'..there is no space to go around.. and the leg/foot rest is quite wide..requiring a decent 'step/jump' over to get out!! lol...at least QF SKYBED MKII has a bit of free space at foots end for window pax to go around
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 May 2012
Total posts 76
While Undertheradar is correct, I’m sure travelers will appreciate the fully flat bed and at $5800 MEL/SYD-LHR return you cant really complain, especially when MH, EK, TG among others are still flying angled flat beds into AUS.
28 Oct 2011
Total posts 645
I agree LR ... they offer great fares...but you got to take the 'good' with the 'not so good' .....there are always tradeoffs
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