China Southern Airlines locks in daily Brisbane flights

China Southern Airlines is gearing up for a swift return to Queensland following the recent easing of China’s outbound group travel bans, locking in four Airbus A350 flights a week between Brisbane and its hub city of Guangzhou from November 17.

Daily flights will soon follow from December 8 to February 25, though the carrier – China’s largest by fleet – expects to make that increase permanent over two years.

In the meantime, flights will adhere to the following schedule.

• CZ382 from Brisbane jets off at 10:10am on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, touching down in Guangzhou at 5:25pm.
• CZ381 departs Guangzhou at 9:20pm every Friday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, before arriving into Brisbane Airport at 8:30am the following morning.

Featuring 28 lie-flat Recaro seats – the same as on El Al’s 787 Dreamliner – China Southern’s A350 business class has a 1-2-1 layout, while premium economy has 24 seats in a 2-4-2. However, it appears only business and economy are on sale at present.

A previous member of the SkyTeam Alliance, from which it withdrew in late 2019, China Southern is widely tipped to join the Oneworld Alliance.

“This increase by China Southern has occurred at breathtaking pace,” says Brisbane Airport CEO Gert-Jan de Graaff.

“It’s still 9 weeks from landing its first flight in Brisbane since the pandemic, but to see demand so strong this early is good news for Queensland’s economy.”

Currently more than half of Queensland’s visitors from China are required to fly via Sydney or Melbourne, and the remainder coming via destinations such as Singapore and Hong Kong.

Group tours accounted for 30% of Australia’s Chinese leisure travel market pre-pandemic. Currently the number of passengers arriving from China is sitting at 12% of 2019 levels, though with the in-bound travel ban lifted in August, that number is expected to increase.