Smiles
November 22nd, 2016, 14:02
Talking about airlines?: you might want to give China Southern Airlines a boo.
China Southern is one of the top airlines in the world as goes numbers of planes and numbers of destinations. I flew it last April, and once again on an emergency flight for just 2 weeks back to Vancouver this November.
I chose it mainly (on the April trip) because of a excellent price deal going Business Class as well as that it belongs with the airline group which includes Korean Air (my usual go-to), thus getting points on Korean.
And what an unexpected pleasure it was! Big area seats with lots of privacy. Great big honking TV screens, reasonable entertainment choices (though I've had better) and my window seat was all alone, with the middle seats being just two abreast.
The food was very very good ... the menu gave a choice of 3 excellent entrees ... the wine kept on coming ... the service was a sexy young Chinese guy who was easy to drool over and who was right there when you needed him, but innocuous when you didn't.
Can't get better than that, and the price was right at $CAN3000 when just about all other airlines were charging at least $CAN1000 more, and many somewhat more than that.
My second trip on CSA this November was in Premier Economy, mainly because I can hardly justify the prices in Biz. I'm not a very big guy and in fact Economy seats fit me fine ... although frankly, in Econ it's all about leg room.
But Premier Economy on China Southern is in fact really really good. No trouble at all stretching one's legs under the seat in front. The seats themselves were heads and shoulders better than in Economy. 12 hours in the air is a stretch for anyone, but on CSA my ass and back paid little price. Premier Economy has the same food as regular economy, but even that was far from being horrendous -- not bad in fact. And the Chinese beer was quite fine for my palate (though honestly, I have in fact never in my life drunk a beer I didn't like ... the bar is very low for me when beer is the issue).
Getting to the west coast of N. America? First leg is a 2.5 hour flight on a small B-737, a layover of about 1.5 hours at Guangzhou, then (to Vancouver) on a very comfy B-777 which takes about 11 hours non stop. (About another 1.5 hours flying back.)
CSA has a huge number of European destinations. On the west coast of North America it's a little less covered, but Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles touchdowns should get you easily into the further-east cities.
https://www.flychina.com/infoCZ16.asp (click on the map to enlarge)
China Southern is one of the top airlines in the world as goes numbers of planes and numbers of destinations. I flew it last April, and once again on an emergency flight for just 2 weeks back to Vancouver this November.
I chose it mainly (on the April trip) because of a excellent price deal going Business Class as well as that it belongs with the airline group which includes Korean Air (my usual go-to), thus getting points on Korean.
And what an unexpected pleasure it was! Big area seats with lots of privacy. Great big honking TV screens, reasonable entertainment choices (though I've had better) and my window seat was all alone, with the middle seats being just two abreast.
The food was very very good ... the menu gave a choice of 3 excellent entrees ... the wine kept on coming ... the service was a sexy young Chinese guy who was easy to drool over and who was right there when you needed him, but innocuous when you didn't.
Can't get better than that, and the price was right at $CAN3000 when just about all other airlines were charging at least $CAN1000 more, and many somewhat more than that.
My second trip on CSA this November was in Premier Economy, mainly because I can hardly justify the prices in Biz. I'm not a very big guy and in fact Economy seats fit me fine ... although frankly, in Econ it's all about leg room.
But Premier Economy on China Southern is in fact really really good. No trouble at all stretching one's legs under the seat in front. The seats themselves were heads and shoulders better than in Economy. 12 hours in the air is a stretch for anyone, but on CSA my ass and back paid little price. Premier Economy has the same food as regular economy, but even that was far from being horrendous -- not bad in fact. And the Chinese beer was quite fine for my palate (though honestly, I have in fact never in my life drunk a beer I didn't like ... the bar is very low for me when beer is the issue).
Getting to the west coast of N. America? First leg is a 2.5 hour flight on a small B-737, a layover of about 1.5 hours at Guangzhou, then (to Vancouver) on a very comfy B-777 which takes about 11 hours non stop. (About another 1.5 hours flying back.)
CSA has a huge number of European destinations. On the west coast of North America it's a little less covered, but Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles touchdowns should get you easily into the further-east cities.
https://www.flychina.com/infoCZ16.asp (click on the map to enlarge)