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highlyeccentricIf it weren't for the baggage debacle, I'd do it again, but with more care not to end up transiting through chinese domestic immigration, and not to end up with 30 hours return flight. (Mind you, they didn't *give* me any not hideous return flight options.)
Mostly-pro:
In flight service: decent, I'd say. About on a par with Etihad, although there was less booze on offer. If you expect perfect English from your airline staff, then don't fly China Southern (Paris - Guangzhou I ended up listening to the French announcements because they had a native speaker, and I'd been away from Aus long enough that the characteristicly weird stress patterns of Asian speaker English were difficult over the loudspeaker). The only time I saw anyone get into a total incomprehension muddle was the unfortunate Asian-Swedish mother and daughter next to me, who kept getting profiled and spoken to in Chinese, and then the staff would get flustered switching to English, and the mother had wobbly English anyway, and whatever it was she wanted to drink, she didn't get it.
Everything was clean and maintained pretty well - I did manage to fry one of the seatback computers on the A330 (I think that's what it was - smaller than an A380 but has USB ports in the seatback) by plugging my phone in, but aside from that everything worked.
Price: It was cheap. Not *the* cheapest I could find - I ruled out a long stopover in Seoul or a very long Geneva-Sydney journey via Germany and Vietnam, but pretty cheap. Guangzhou airport however is *not* a cheap place to have snacks.
Partner airlines: They're in Skyteam, so I had legs with AirFrance (domestic Geneva-Paris) and KLM (itty bitty commuter flight Frankfurt-Amsterdam). AirFrance did a sterling job getting me re-checked in and warning the gate staff (I was checking in, with border clearance still to go, when boarding was starting) to expect me, etc. And it turns out it wasn't THEY who lost my luggage.
Guangzhou transits: were actually super efficient on the passenger side. We had to go through a basic border check for international transit, and that was efficient; there were staff on the other side with placards labeled for the most urgent connections. The international terminal seemed small and easy to navigate. Coffee was easy to find, but apparently not cheap.
On the way back I had to clear Chinese immigration (there's a 24 hour local stopover visa automatically granted to 72 countries - China Southern when the launched in the Aus market were doing good deals on o/night stopovers in Guangzhou), then proceed through domestic security, and subsequently clear exit immigration in Changsha. This wasn't *fun*, but China Southern did pretty much everything possible to make it simple. As we came in through immigration, we were given big coloured stickers with our flight numbers, and a small map showing the terminals and where to go. At the designated check-in counter in Domestic, as we were already checked in, we were gathered in a waiting spot (I wandered off and found food). There were nice big signs in three languages explaining what flights were to wait there, and why. Eventually we were gathered up, sorted by our stickers, and counted like kindy kids on an excursion, then shepherded through security and into a transit lounge where there were candy bars and speculaas biscuits and mini cans of coke and water available. We *weren't* coaxed through Changsha exit immigration, which is why I fucked up myself and all the Germans behind me by filling out inbound instead of outbound forms. That's not their fault, it said clearly ARRIVAL in English. It was 3am Sydney time, what can I say.
One downside: ASIAN FLOOR TOILETS. How do people without penises use them while wearing jeans? I had this problem in Dubai, too. Do you need to take your shoes off to take the pants off every damn time????
Mixed pro and con:
Food: not as good as Thai or Etihad, who I've flown with for similar prices (Thai's food is AMAZING, Etihad OK). Personally I'd much rather mediocre asian airline food than mediocre western airline food, so that's fine by me. While the newbie-traveller from India sighed about the bland food I squeed about ACTUAL WATER CHESTNUTS. While the disgruntled chinese lady next to me ate weird ommlette and sausages, I ate dim sum for breakfast, and I was happy about it. However, my usual rule of 'choose the asian meal' went terribly awry on one dinner tray: I ordered 'beef noodle' and got the most hilarious disaster of a bolognaise I've ever encountered. It had *baby corns* in it. Another annoyance was that dessert was always yoghurt, (and never a kind I liked) and dinner trays didn't come with the little sealed cup of water. There weren't as many drink trolley trips as one would hope, really. Dehydration a risk. On the other hand, the tea was very nice - but only served black without sugar, as is proper for chinese tea.
In-flight entertainment: the range of music and not-recent-release western movies was crap. On the final leg I realised the answer to this was to watch Bollywood movies, and had a great time with a movie called Queen, and listening to J-Pop. On the other hand, half the flight seemed enthralled with a horrible prank show called Just for Gags, I wanted to set it and them all on fire.
Fellow passengers: My Paris-Guangzhou flight was the flight of geeks. I spotted several anime shirts, a Harry Potter scarf, and the girl next to me worked her way through every available Marvel movie, everything with KStew she could, and The Hobbit part 1. I befriended a geek chorister from Melbourne in Guangzhou airport on the way through.
On the down side, my flights back, *particularly* Guangzhou to Frankfurt... I have never, or at least not since I last flew in a troop carrier, been around that many airsick people at once. Many people also had colds, which they shared with me. Not sure why the airsickness - no turbulence. Maybe chinese travelsicknes tablets don't work properly? (None of them were as ill as the person behind me on the way into Sydney - but that was one person, and the Sydney airport evening queue was doing VERY TIGHT SPIRALS that evening.)
Definitely con:
THEY LOST MY LUGGAGE AND TOOK A WEEK TO GET IT BACK TO ME. A bunch of other people on my Guangzhou-Sydney flight also had missing luggage (including the son of the very airsick person), and Toll, who handle China Southern's bags and check-in in Sydney, are perfectly competent, so it's not their fault. I think maybe there's an argument for privatisation: an entire airport run by the chinese beaurocracy might not actually be the best way to get luggage from A to B during the christmas rush to Sydney. (My luggage went briefly astray in Amsterdam, too - it had been sent on for further transfer and had to be called back.)
Mostly-pro:
In flight service: decent, I'd say. About on a par with Etihad, although there was less booze on offer. If you expect perfect English from your airline staff, then don't fly China Southern (Paris - Guangzhou I ended up listening to the French announcements because they had a native speaker, and I'd been away from Aus long enough that the characteristicly weird stress patterns of Asian speaker English were difficult over the loudspeaker). The only time I saw anyone get into a total incomprehension muddle was the unfortunate Asian-Swedish mother and daughter next to me, who kept getting profiled and spoken to in Chinese, and then the staff would get flustered switching to English, and the mother had wobbly English anyway, and whatever it was she wanted to drink, she didn't get it.
Everything was clean and maintained pretty well - I did manage to fry one of the seatback computers on the A330 (I think that's what it was - smaller than an A380 but has USB ports in the seatback) by plugging my phone in, but aside from that everything worked.
Price: It was cheap. Not *the* cheapest I could find - I ruled out a long stopover in Seoul or a very long Geneva-Sydney journey via Germany and Vietnam, but pretty cheap. Guangzhou airport however is *not* a cheap place to have snacks.
Partner airlines: They're in Skyteam, so I had legs with AirFrance (domestic Geneva-Paris) and KLM (itty bitty commuter flight Frankfurt-Amsterdam). AirFrance did a sterling job getting me re-checked in and warning the gate staff (I was checking in, with border clearance still to go, when boarding was starting) to expect me, etc. And it turns out it wasn't THEY who lost my luggage.
Guangzhou transits: were actually super efficient on the passenger side. We had to go through a basic border check for international transit, and that was efficient; there were staff on the other side with placards labeled for the most urgent connections. The international terminal seemed small and easy to navigate. Coffee was easy to find, but apparently not cheap.
On the way back I had to clear Chinese immigration (there's a 24 hour local stopover visa automatically granted to 72 countries - China Southern when the launched in the Aus market were doing good deals on o/night stopovers in Guangzhou), then proceed through domestic security, and subsequently clear exit immigration in Changsha. This wasn't *fun*, but China Southern did pretty much everything possible to make it simple. As we came in through immigration, we were given big coloured stickers with our flight numbers, and a small map showing the terminals and where to go. At the designated check-in counter in Domestic, as we were already checked in, we were gathered in a waiting spot (I wandered off and found food). There were nice big signs in three languages explaining what flights were to wait there, and why. Eventually we were gathered up, sorted by our stickers, and counted like kindy kids on an excursion, then shepherded through security and into a transit lounge where there were candy bars and speculaas biscuits and mini cans of coke and water available. We *weren't* coaxed through Changsha exit immigration, which is why I fucked up myself and all the Germans behind me by filling out inbound instead of outbound forms. That's not their fault, it said clearly ARRIVAL in English. It was 3am Sydney time, what can I say.
One downside: ASIAN FLOOR TOILETS. How do people without penises use them while wearing jeans? I had this problem in Dubai, too. Do you need to take your shoes off to take the pants off every damn time????
Mixed pro and con:
Food: not as good as Thai or Etihad, who I've flown with for similar prices (Thai's food is AMAZING, Etihad OK). Personally I'd much rather mediocre asian airline food than mediocre western airline food, so that's fine by me. While the newbie-traveller from India sighed about the bland food I squeed about ACTUAL WATER CHESTNUTS. While the disgruntled chinese lady next to me ate weird ommlette and sausages, I ate dim sum for breakfast, and I was happy about it. However, my usual rule of 'choose the asian meal' went terribly awry on one dinner tray: I ordered 'beef noodle' and got the most hilarious disaster of a bolognaise I've ever encountered. It had *baby corns* in it. Another annoyance was that dessert was always yoghurt, (and never a kind I liked) and dinner trays didn't come with the little sealed cup of water. There weren't as many drink trolley trips as one would hope, really. Dehydration a risk. On the other hand, the tea was very nice - but only served black without sugar, as is proper for chinese tea.
In-flight entertainment: the range of music and not-recent-release western movies was crap. On the final leg I realised the answer to this was to watch Bollywood movies, and had a great time with a movie called Queen, and listening to J-Pop. On the other hand, half the flight seemed enthralled with a horrible prank show called Just for Gags, I wanted to set it and them all on fire.
Fellow passengers: My Paris-Guangzhou flight was the flight of geeks. I spotted several anime shirts, a Harry Potter scarf, and the girl next to me worked her way through every available Marvel movie, everything with KStew she could, and The Hobbit part 1. I befriended a geek chorister from Melbourne in Guangzhou airport on the way through.
On the down side, my flights back, *particularly* Guangzhou to Frankfurt... I have never, or at least not since I last flew in a troop carrier, been around that many airsick people at once. Many people also had colds, which they shared with me. Not sure why the airsickness - no turbulence. Maybe chinese travelsicknes tablets don't work properly? (None of them were as ill as the person behind me on the way into Sydney - but that was one person, and the Sydney airport evening queue was doing VERY TIGHT SPIRALS that evening.)
Definitely con:
THEY LOST MY LUGGAGE AND TOOK A WEEK TO GET IT BACK TO ME. A bunch of other people on my Guangzhou-Sydney flight also had missing luggage (including the son of the very airsick person), and Toll, who handle China Southern's bags and check-in in Sydney, are perfectly competent, so it's not their fault. I think maybe there's an argument for privatisation: an entire airport run by the chinese beaurocracy might not actually be the best way to get luggage from A to B during the christmas rush to Sydney. (My luggage went briefly astray in Amsterdam, too - it had been sent on for further transfer and had to be called back.)