China Southern

[javasumatra]

We are back from our China Southern trip.

We few BKK-WUH-SFO in business. The checkin at BKK was fine and we got fast track security and immigration access and passes for the Miracle lounge. I normally use the Cathay or JAL lounges. The Miracle lounge wasn't as good as those but it was OK.

The flight BKK-WUH was on a 737-700 with 1 row of 4 seats in business. The seats were a bit crap and the plane stunk of stale cigarettes but the service and food was nice. Our transfer in Wuhan was 7.5 hours, I was expecting hoardes of people there but it was deserted. Some ground staff from China Southern met us and told us that we would need to collect our baggage and check back in and that they had a hotel room for us. I was surprised we had to do this as I was expecting to just relax in the lounge. We went through immigration, The officials were rude and quite nasty but we got through on transit visas and went to to the hotel (I'm sorry I have no idea of the hotel name). The hotel again stunk of cigarettes but we got some sleep and had a shower and went back to the airport.

Biz class Checkin was fine at Wuhan and again we were given some lounge passes. Immigration and security were fine (as the place was deserted) and we went to the lounge number 1. The lounge kind of sucked and there was no alcohol.

Our flight to SFO was on a 787. I have flown Longhaul business on the following airlines - Cathay, Emirates, Qatar, Etihad, BA, Royal Jordanian, Qantas, JAL, Thai Air Asia X, United and AA (and probably some more I have forgotten). The China Southern 787 business class seat is really nice, OK, its not as good as Qatar or Emirates but easily competes with Cathay and is miles better than BA, I was really impressed. The only annoyance was the 'foot coffin'. The food was really nice, the service was fantastic and the IFE is extensive and very responsive and we slept 10 of the 12 hours back to SFO.

To summarize -

+ves

Lovely comfortable seat on the 787 in biz, great food, great service, great IFE.

Wuhan transfer smooth and hassle free.

-ves

The 737 stunk of cigarettes.

We paid $1800 for a return trip (we are going back to BKK in November). Eva, JAL etc were over $4000. I would definitely use China Southern again via Wuhan.