Southern China Air is the world’s third largest airline, and will soon offer direct flights from San Francisco to Guangzhou .. in southern China, of course. Guangzhou is about an hour’s train ride from Hong Kong. Check out the Guangzhou blog entry I made back in 2011 of a quick trip there. The new SFO> Guangzhou flight will operate 4 times a week non-stop using a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.