China Southern Airlines has become the world's first passenger operator of the Airbus A319neo, following two deliveries of the type. The jets made the journey from Germany to China with just a single stop. While the A319neo hasn't proven as popular as its larger counterparts, this marks an important milestone for the type.

One after the other

Over the weekend, China Southern Airlines proudly took to Twitter to announce the arrival of its first Airbus A319neo. The Guangzhou-based former SkyTeam member noted that the delivery makes it "the first airline to operate the state-of-art A319neo aircraft in the world." In fact, two examples joined the carrier last week.

Registered as B-328A and B-328C, data from FlightRadar24.com shows that the twinjets made their way over to China from Airbus's facilities in Hamburg, Germany on February 18th and 19th. They took to the skies Friday, at 11:35 and 12:04 respectively. In each instance, these departures were around half an hour late.

While the A319neo doesn't have the range to get from Germany to China in one go, just a single stop was necessary. This took place in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, just over five hours from Hamburg. After just over an hour on the ground, the jets were back in the skies before midnight, and reached China the next morning.

Three-class twinjets

With its headquarters in Guangzhou, the city's Baiyun International Airport (CAN) is a key hub for China Southern Airlines. Tracking data for the second leg from Nur-Sultan to Guangzhou is less extensive, but the A319neos appear to have arrived there at around 06:45 and 07:40 respectively on February 19th.

Earlier today, China Southern Airlines shared details regarding the configuration of its new aircraft on Twitter. The carrier plans to deploy "a comfortable three-class cabin layout with 4 seats in business, 24 seats in premium economy, and 108 seats in economy class." CFM Leap-1A engines power the aircraft.

The airline didn't share any details in terms of the seat pitch in these classes. However, SeatGuru shows that China Southern's A319ceos also have a three-class setup. As such, the A319neos may have a similar offering to the 31, 36, and 42 inches available in economy, premium economy, and business on these older twinjets.

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Joining larger family members

While the weekend arrivals represented the delivery of China Southern's first A319neos, the airline is already very familiar with the A320neo family as a whole. Indeed, data from ch-aviation.com shows that it already operates 39 standard A320neos, alongside 51 stretched-fuselage A321neos (plus two on order).

For now, Airbus has the edge at China Southern Airlines when it comes to next-generation single-aisle aircraft. After all, while the carrier has 24 Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets in its fleet (plus 43 on order), all of them are presently inactive, with China yet to unground the type. It will be interesting to see what, if any, progress is made on this front in the coming year, given the potential need for increased capacity.

What do you make of these deliveries? Have you ever flown on one of China Southern Airlines' other Airbus narrowbodies? Let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments!