Air China upgrades Sydney-Beijing with new 777 business class

Air China is upgrading the seats on its Sydney-Beijing flight, with new fully flat beds -- and thirty more of them -- on board a larger Boeing 777-300ER plane.

That's a serious business travel boost from the Airbus A330 the airline will be using up until the switch on 11 December.

As you can see from the aircraft's seat map, the fully flat beds are arranged in a 2-2-2 configuration, which is relatively spacious for a Boeing 777 -- Virgin Australia, for example, uses a 2-3-2 layout in its 777 business class.

Air China hasn't released full images of its this business class seat, codenamed "Diamond", with only sneak peeks available.

But Australian Business Traveller understands it to be a twin of the business class pods planned for American Airlines' new transcontinental US services:

The seats are offset slightly from centre, with A and C seats on the left hand side facing towards the windows, D and H seats in the middle angled towards the right, and J and L seats on the right pointing towards the windows.

For the long trek up north, you'll have a 15.4-inch screen playing on-demand entertainment, plus a power point for each seat.

If you -- or your expense account -- are feeling flush, there are also eight spacious and private first class suites in front of business class.

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John Walton

Aviation journalist and travel columnist John took his first long-haul flight when he was eight weeks old and hasn't looked back since. Well, except when facing rearwards in business class.