China Southern is gearing up for its ‘Canton Route’ debut which they are going to start beginning on the 5^th of June from Australia to London which will go through China. Rates for the business class starts from a little over $5000 for a return fare.

General Manager Mr. Henry He of China Southern for Australia and New Zealand stressed on the point that these rates were not “sales fares” and also stated that all these prices were the best value for the business class and would be available all through the year.  They are totally committed to enable more and more of Australians to experience and enjoy the front of the aircraft traveling.

China Southern will schedule three flights a week which will run on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday from its hub in Guangzhou to London.

Pegging the return fares for business class from Sydney at $5066 and from Melbourne at $5085, China Southern airlines hopes that the ‘Canton Route’ will steal the thunder from the existing Kangaroo Route that goes via Singapore and between Australia and UK.

From Sydney to Paris the return air fare starts from $4854 upwards and from $4779 upwards from Sydney to Amsterdam

China Southern has decided to run their services from Guangzhou to London three times a week on Wednesdays, Fridays and on Sundays.

Flights start from Guangzhou at 9 am in the morning and land at Heathrow at 3.25. The return flights on Wednesdays and Fridays takes off from London to land in Guangzhou at 5.30 pm. There is an early take off on Sunday at 6.25 pm which drops you at 1.25 pm the next day in Guangzhou.

As Kangaroo Route has Singapore as stop over, even Guangzhou is an important business class destination in its own right since Guangzhou is only little over 100 kilometers from Hong Kong.

According to Mr. He there are already twice the flight daily from Sydney to Guangzhou and also from Melbourne to Guangzhou run by China Southern. From Brisbane there are four flights in a week and from Perth there are three. Now the airlines aim is to triple the count of weekly 35 flights to more than 110 from Australia to Guangzhou by 2015 end.

The business class and the first class seats are installed in the nose end of China Southern’s fleet of A330 Airbuses.

In the business class there is 2-2-2 seating arrangement consisting of a 1.9 meter angled bed having a pitch of 64 inches and video screen of 15 inches and a space to keep 40 kg of checked luggage.

First class seems more spacious with a layout of 1-2-1 arrangement made to accommodate the passengers in a cubicle layout style.

As a member of SkyTeam Alliance, passengers of China Southern get to earn frequent flyer miles. These can be used on any flights from the network of SkyTeam Alliance. However, presently the SkyTeam does not have any Australian based airline as a member.