The Guangzhou-based airline was yesterday undercutting Qantas by up to 50% on the Sydney to London route (which the carrier calls the Canton Route after the former name for Guangzhou). Henry He, China Southern managing director for Australia, told the Sydney Morning Herald the specials would be in the market for a short time only.
China Southern’s economy fare (for a two-week trip starting 4 May 2013) is just AUD 1442. On booking site Webjet.com this morning, the flight was listed at AUD 1443 for a Sydney/London flight on Saturday 4 May 2013. Next cheapest was China Eastern at AUD 1543, then KLM at AUD 1663.
A comparable return fare on Qantas to London is AUD 2207. Whether that level will fall in reaction to the marketplace remains to be seen. Flying Sydney/London via Guangzhou with China Southern takes 23 hours, which is only 50 minutes longer than flying there with Qantas via Dubai.
The largest carrier in China and Asia and the third largest in the world, China Southern is an increasingly major player in the Australian market and the biggest carrier of Chinese tourists to Australia. It has 14 flights a week from Guangzhou to Sydney and 10 flights to Melbourne.
Latest figures show China Southern carried 385,706 passengers to Australia in 2012, a whopping 57% more than the 246,000 passengers the airline flew to Australia in 2011.
Guangzhou is a fabulous place, but outbound Australians heading for Europe require a stopover visa, costing AUD 98, if they wish to leave the terminal there. China Southern is keen to get this waived, as is already the case in Shanghai and Beijing. China tends to handle such matters on a regional basis. Interestingly, however, SWISS flies to Shanghai and finds that its Australian customers are quite happy to fly there and link with the SWISS onward service to Zurich.
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