We consider the two-dimensional convection-diffusion equation with a fractional Laplacian, supplemented with step-like initial conditions. We show that the large time behavior of solutions to this IVP is described either by rarefaction waves, or diffusion waves, or suitable self-similar solutions, depending on the order of the fractional dissipation and on a direction of a convective nonlinearity. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.