Trip Reports - UA/CA BOS-SFO-PEK-SHA/PVG-SFO Trip Report

Someone on the Northwest board was interested in hearing about Air China's services on the code-share flight, so here goes my first trip report!

Having a week's vacation on my hands (plus the bracketing weekends), I decided to take a trip with a couple of my buddies from college. Our initial destination was Las Vegas (the usual for single twenty-something guys with nothing better to do), but after factoring in the inevitable gambling losses, it turned out that taking a package tour to China would in fact be pretty much the same price. So robinhood and friends were off to China! Since my friends are silicon valley geeks in San Jose, and I'm in Boston, I had to take an extra flight to get to the West Coast to meet up with them. The tour operator wanted $300 as an add-on, so I politely declined and bought a $200 RT to SJC on UA. The tour included SFO-PEK-SHA/PVG-SFO on Air China. I had always been curious about CA anyway, and was eager to try them out. The 12,000 WorldPerks miles didn't hurt either. My friends were less enthused. For those of you used to first class travel, prepare to be underwhelmed. But it was quite worth it for the price. Anyway, here is the trip report -- I have some interesting photos that I will add eventually, but I don't have any time to scan them in just yet.

Part I: A Close Call with Camp O'Hare
UA 523/1749 (initially) and 999/South Bay Flyer (eventually)

I decided to take flight 523, the 3:30 PM departure to ORD for a couple of reasons. First, the late departure gave me enough time to have a leisurely lunch at the Legal Sea Foods in Terminal C. Second, it was an internationally configured 763, which I like even for such a short flight. Finally, I have good experiences with 523, especially as it got me out of Boston in March right before a big snow storm hit. It was like taking the last chopper out of Saigon. In any case, it was to connect in ORD to 1749, a 6:15 A320 to SJC, leaving me with an hour layover, arriving at SJC at a decent 8:45 PM.

I arrived at BOS at noon, ready for my long-anticipated lunch at LSF. The earlier flights to and from ORD were looking chaotic, but 523 still looked good, and since the Weather channel was reporting that a line of thunderstorms had already passed ORD and was in Indiana, I figured there wasn't too much to worry about. I had my meal, and waddled over to check in. I inquired of the agent as to the likelihood of my getting stuck in a cot city at O'Hare overnight, and he claimed 523 still looked on time. So I continued my waddle to the gate (at this point regretting the Boston Creme Pie I had just gorged myself with) and sat down, drifting in and out of a stupor for the next half an hour. Eventually, the 763 pulled up to the gate, and I watched as the cleaning crew arrived. The gate area was full of people rebooked on the flight off of an ATA flight to Midway -- they didn't look too happy. At this point it was still 2:45 or so, and I decided to take a walk. The 2:30 flight to ORD was allegedly delayed until 3:00, so I marched on over, considering whether I should try to jump on it and get to ORD early. When I got there, they were just finishing the boarding process, the agent looked harried, and I decided not to try my luck. I returned to the gate area, and 3:00 rolled around. Then 3:05. Then 3:10. Announcement: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we're just cleaning and servicing the aircraft, and boarding will begin shortly." Five minutes later, another announcement: "Due to weather enroute, the flight is delayed -- we'll get back to you in 30 minutes." 30 minutes? Good heavens, was this the beginning of one of the dreaded rolling delays? I walked on over to the gate for the 2:30 flight. It was still there! What was going on?

It was time for plan B. I approached the gate agent working the 4:00 SFO flight, which had now been pushed back to 4:40 because the incoming from ORD was in limbo land and they were replacing it with a plane arriving from SFO at 3:50. I asked about getting rebooked to SFO, and the VERY friendly agent said it wouldn't be a problem. He also offered to protect me on the last ORD-SJC flight of the day, in case I ended up going on 523 and happened to miss 1749. In a moment of mental deficiency, I agreed to the latter plan and remained on 523. 3:45 rolled around with no further information forthcoming from the ORD people. The 2:30 flight was still sitting at the gate with the doors closed and jetbridge pulled away, presumably packed with passengers sweltering in the summer heat. Given these incontovertible signs that I was about to be royally screwed, I finally decided to jump ship and was rebooked on 999, a 757 nonstop to SFO, with a United Groundlink segment down to SJC. At the time I didn't know it, but BOS-SFO gives more status miles than BOS-ORD-SJC, and if I had known I would have jumped ship much earlier.

So I call the friend picking me up, and he sounded surprised to get me on the phone. "Where the heck are you calling from, the plane?"

"No, the flight was delayed and now I'm rebooked into SFO with a bus down to SJC. Can you pick me up at SFO? I don't really wanna wait an hour for the bus."

Long Pause.

"But the United website says your plane is in flight to Chicago."

"Ummm....well I can see it sitting on the tarmac and nobody is on it, so clearly it is not in flight."

"Ok, whatever, I'll pick you up in San Francisco."

As it turns out, not long after getting rebooked, flight 523 was delayed until 6:30 PM, and the gate area started to look like a refugee camp since they had opened checkin for the 4:40 ORD flight. I heaped praised upon myself for my wisdom, and questioned how the website could be so wrong.

999 eventually boarded, and it wasn't really very full. Most rows had middle seats open. Service was the usual. Unfortunately, I am getting mighty tired of the United coach meals. The Ginger chicken and Pot Roast were pretty good the first time around, but after you've had about 6 of them, it getts pretty old. Can we expect any new meals in coach? I asked for whatever the FA had more of, and she gave me the Pot Roast, commenting that it was very good. The movie was Erin Brockovitch, which I saw the first time on a plane, the second time on a plane, and now a third time on a plane. I would later see "the making of Erin Brockovich" on the plane on the way back -- believe me when I say I never want to see that movie again.

Interestingly enough, we flew way out to the north into Canada to avoid the line of thunderstorms that had ruined my initial itinerary. Is this what the FAA has been touting about their new initiative to reduce delays by routing into Canada? Well it worked for me. We landed in SFO at about 8:20 PM, a little earlier than I would have gotten into SJC. My ride was there, and anyway the Groundlink ticket was electronic, and I would have had to stand in line at the service center to get a paper one, so I just skipped out on it. Thanks Flyertalk for informing me that there are no consequences!

I later found out that 523 arrived in Chicago at 10:30 PM, virtually assuring that those passengers miserable enough to have remained on the flight would have been housed at Camp O'Hare for the night.


And it's off the Beijing! (Gong!)
CA 986 (also NW 5986)

The next morning we all decided to go to SFO a little bit earlier to check out the much vaunted International Terminal and eat at the much vaunted restaurants. The flight was scheduled for 3:30 PM, but I had heard horror stories about Air China's on-time record. Epinions wasn't very helpful -- some bozo decided to bash the airline while freely admitting to never having taken any Air China flights. Why do people do such things? We got to SFO and checked in early. The terminal building is nice, modern, and spacious, but hardly the gleaming jewel on the bay that I had been prepped to expect. I guess I'm expecting the old Grand Central Station in New York. But it is much better than the old terminal -- definitely world class (especially the exterior).

I was already aware that our flight was absolutely full -- 0 availability in every class on ITN. Why CA bothers to sell cheepie tickets (we're talking probably less than $400 each for the transpac RT) to tour people like us when their flights are 100% full beats the heck out of me. There were at least 4 large tour groups checking in for the flight. There's state-owned efficiency for ya. Anyway, at checkin, the agent was pleasant enough without being friendly. Since our tour agent refused to assign seats, and I was too busy to call Air China on my own time, we didn't have seats pre-assigned. We inquired about exit row seats, or the side sections with the windows, and the agent went and checked a large book. When she returned, she informed us that "all of the seats have been preassigned." It turns out we had three seats in the middle section, including two middles. The HORROR! Can we please change? "All seats have been preassigned, sorry." The agent WAS very efficient about entering our WorldPerks numbers, though. Whether we get the miles remains to be seen. I have my ticket and boarding passes just in case.

We decided to get some food to smother our seat-related sorrows in. (By now you must think I'm such a pig!) We had some horrendously overpriced dim sum at Harbour Village or whatever it's called. Street pricing my foot! In general I was very disappointed by the number and quality of shops and restaurants in the new terminal. The hype has been blown way out of proportion. Considering our $20 dim sum was an exceedingly small amount of food, we then passed security and had more horrendously overpriced food at BOTH of the two remaining restaurants in Terminal A. The 744 had arrived at about 1:30 from PVG, and seemed fairly well maintained (not that you can tell just from looking). Boarding began promptly at 2:50, starting with First Class, and then from back to front, as usual. It strikes me as odd that Air China even has a First Class -- doesn't it seem kind of bourgeois? But then again, China isn't really communist any more, is it?

The cabin interior was clean, the upholstery and seats were fairly modern and pleasant. The seat pitch and recline was extremely generous -- at least 34" pitch. Some rows had more, some rows had a little less, but all were much more comfortable than code-share partner Northwest. By now, I began noticing some little oddities -- all of the headrest covers had advertisements for some industrial ceramics manufacturer on the back -- so you basically get to stare at an ad for Eagle Brand Ceramics for 12 hours. The paper coffee cups, I later discovered, also have ads -- this time for YenJing Beer. The headphones were still the old-style pneumatic ones -- how long has it been since you've seen one of those? It's been at least 12 years since I've seen one.

Pushback, contrary to all expectations, was PRECISELY at 3:30. In fact it was so precise that people were still milling about fiddling with the overhead bins as we were moving. None of the FAs seemed to care, and went about their business. The safety video was extraordinarily long, and parts of it were in slo-mo. Eeenteresting! By the time the video ended we were on the runway, and were off!

After takeoff, drinks came by twice in rapid succession, not including the time the cart was pushed back to the galley for refills and during which EVERYONE was given refills. Unlike some US airlines, no whole cans were given out, although no one asked. I later asked an FA in the galley for some Coke and she gave me the whole can after asking if I could finish it. Most soft drinks were poured from 2 (or maybe 1.5) liter bottles. The FAs were pleasant enough, certainly no worse than your average US FA, and considerably better than the legendary "prison matrons." Dinner came around after drinks, with a choice of beef noodles or chicken over rice. This came with a cake which was quite delicious, a salad, and a roll. I had the beef noodles. I must say the quantity of food they give you is considerable, although the quality is only passable. Out of SFO, the food tasted very much like food you can get at very very cheap hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurants. But I think that's SFO catering's problem. Our later flights originating from PEK and PVG had much better quality food. They might wish to consider investing in more attractive trays as well -- these looked like scraped up old blue plastic crates, but they were clean and complaining about the appearance of trays is really just nitpicking.

Drinks, coffee, and tea followed the food in rapid succession, and sooner than not the meal service was over. They had the airshow map showing on the main screen, but this was eventually obliterated by 5 back to back movies that occupied the screen for the entire flight. The first was some old movie starring Richard Gere (which also surprised me considering some of his more recent movies and political statements). The next three were Chinese movies, the last of which was some agitprop epic about the brave exploits of a People's Liberation Army troop during the Chinese Civil War when they had to escort some pregnant women somewhere. The subtitles were terrible, and I didn't bother watching either these movies or the Richard Gere business. The last movie was started less then 2 hours away from Beijing, and it was a COMPLETELY UNEDITED version of the Denzel Washington/Angelina Jolie flick, the Bone Collector. Those of you who have seen this movie know how gruesome it is, and it was left intact, profanity and everything. Really very odd. Unfortunately, the last 10 minutes or so were left unfinished as we had to land.

In the meantime, drinks and cups were left out in the galley for you to pour for yourself if you so desired, or FAs would respond quickly to the call buttons. I was fed up with my middle seat, and stood in the exit doorway for a considerable proportion of the flight. About 3 hours before arrival, a second meal service was done (this was another dinner, as it was now afternoon in Beijing). Same quantity and quality of food, accompanied again by multiple drink services. The odd thing about this is that they handed out boxes with turkey sandwiches in them immediately after clearing the meals. Did they expect people to still be hungry? I didn't complain though.

We arrived at Beijing Capital Airport about 30 minutes early. The new terminal in Beijing is just as modern and clean as SFO's new IT, although maybe not as warm or well decorated. The "Frontier Guard" stamped our passports in total silence, which was a little frightening. Baggage claim was rapid, we were not selected for customs inspection although the people in front of us were, and we were the first people out to be met by our tour guides.

PEK-SHA, PVG-SFO, and hotel, city impressions to come later!

Great report! Looking forward to your impressions of PEK and SHA.

Great report. I flew Air China out of Hong Kong last year also on a tour package. Nice airline, very efficient, and all flights were on time.

Look forward to hearing how your tour in China goes. If it was anything like mine, cost was cheap but "do we have to stop and visit another tourist trap, errrrr, I mean tourist exhibit?"

CS

Great report. I flew Air China from Hong Kong to Shanghai many years ago in Business class, and I remembered that they poured the soft drinks from 1 litre bottles. I think they must be the only airline that does that. Must be a lot cheaper or something... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Part II: The Whirlwhind Begins
Beijing and CA1501 PEK-SHA

The tour we had ultimately settled on after considering our time constraints, was an extraordinarily abbreviated "8-day" tour, of which 1 day was taken up by the flight west, and of which part of a second was taken up by the flight east. As a result, everything was crammed minute to minute, with wake up calls ranging from 5:30 Am to 6:30 AM and never later. It was like living as a refugee.

After arriving in Beijing, we were shuttled to the Jing Guang New World Hotel, which is located in the Jing Guang tower, the tallest building in Beijing. Which isn't very tall, compared to the Jin Mao building in Shanghai. The Jing Guang New World is apparently furtively owned by Marriott -- a search of Marriott-owned properties in Beijing won't reveal it, but it does participate in Marriott promotions in China, and if you look closely at the bottom of Marriott's Asian press-releases, you'll eventually realize that the hotel is in fact owned by Marriott. Fat chance of getting Marriott Rewards though. The public areas were nice enough, but the rooms were getting a little tired. The bathrooms especially needed work. The inconsistent hot water flow in the shower reminded me of my college dorm shower, where you had to move out of the stream whenever someone flushed a toilet in order to avoid getting scalded.

We spent the next two days exploring (or shall we say, herded) through the environs of Beijing. The Forbidden City was definitely the highlight, despite being given "5 minutes for photos before regrouping!" in each courtyard. One of the outer courtyards was a mess of construction in preparation for the Three Tenors concert scheduled for the next Saturday. Beijing in general was much cleaner, much more modern, and much more crazy about the Olympics than I had expected. Olympics ads were literally plastered EVERYWHERE! I was also stunned by the amount of security at Tienanmen Square. There are soldiers/policemen everywhere. I made some snide comment about the size of Chairman Mao's portrait and one of my friends told me to shut the heck up before we got dragged to a labor reeducation camp. Tongue in cheek, of course.

The Great Wall was also a must see. Although here is a tip: haggle like a crazy person with the little stalls at the foot of the Badaling Great Wall. If they ask for 400 RMB you can probably get away with giving them 50 and even then you might be paying too much.

As the second part of our tour was in the Shanghai area, we were to catch a domestic flight down to the old Hongqiao airport in the morning of the third day. I had been expecting the domestic leg to have significantly poorer service, but boy was I wrong! Check in went easily enough as the tour guides handled it all (even sending our luggage aboard the night before). The aircraft was a 744 again (in fact, it was the 2nd 744 in 10 minutes to depart for SHA), same generous leg room, same ceramics ads on the headrests. The flight attendants on this flight were younger and friendlier than on the international flight (even though the latter were friendly enough to begin with). One woman came aboard with a heavy-looking rollaboard and asked for help putting it up in the overhead bin. The rather short FA had no problem helping lift it up...I've seen plenty of beefy American FA's berate passengers for even asking. Another passenger had a defective reading light -- when the FA couldn't fix it, she immediately apologized, offered to move him to another seat, and moved his carryons for him. I was impressed.

The inflight service was likewise superb. At our again precisely on-time pushback, the FAs lined up at the front of each cabin and gave a little bow, which was a nice touch, and definitely not done on the international flights. Some Discovery Channel features were shown on the main screen, and a breakfast was passed out along with 3, yes, 3 drink services. This, mind you, was a 1.5 hour flight. The breakfast was huge, and included cold Japanese-style noodles with ham, a turkey roll, some fruit, and a cake. All were quite delicious -- on a US domestic flight of this length you'd be lucky to get pretzels and a soda. I'd bet some airlines wouldn't think twice about doing "fast break" service with water or oj.

We arrived at Hongqiao on time. I had been expecting a run down 50's era sinkhole of an airport, as I had been reading comparisons between SHA and the newer PVG airport. It was actually not that bad. The baggage claim was a little dated, but if you want to see a third world airport, try SJC's C terminal.

More to come...Shanghai and the JC Mandarin, the beautiful Sheraton Wuxi, travels in Hangzhou/Suzhou...

Part III: Eastern China

Shanghai is a shocking city. Skyscrapers are arising everywhere like weeds. The general impression is that of a cross between "Blade Runner" and an architecture student's final project. Gleaming glass-and-steel office buildings of all conceivable shapes and sizes loom over increasingly modernized neighborhoods. Packed into all this are row after row of gargantuan high-rise apartment buildings. One begins to appreciate how China manages to house its 1.3 billion people. Unfortunately, much of Shanghai's fascinating history is disappearing as it becomes more and more like a modern western city. The Bund, although once again being reworked into a financial center, is looking tired and overwhelmed by the Manhattan-esque development arising across the river in Pudong.

In Shanghai, we stayed at the JC Mandarin, which is decent enough, but someone at Conde Nast must have been on crack to have ranked it so high on their little list. I mean, the rooms are huge, but the place has not aged well.

We also drove to some of the cities around Shanghai, including Wuxi, Suzhou, and Hangzhou. The lakes and gardens to be seen in these cities are very much worth the trip. Of particular note are the Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou (which is most assuredly NOT humble) and the West Lake in Hangzhou.

The Sheraton in Wuxi also deserves mention in terms of places to stay. While it has an unpreposessing lobby, the rooms are beautifully decorated, with porcelains and even the lamp was a replica of a terracotta horse. The comforter on the bed was one of the most comfortable I have ever slept in -- it was warm without being hot, fluffy, soft, and just as light as down. I could have stayed wrapped in the comforter for days. I later asked and was informed that the comforters are stuffed with silk, since silk is a major industry of the area. Also interesting about this Sheraton was my experience presenting my Starwood Gold card. As a member of a tour group, I wasn't expecting to get points for the stay, but was hoping for an upgrade to a better room. The front desk staff agreed to upgrade me, but I ended up getting the same room I would have gotten anyway. I was too tired to ask why, but I wonder what the point or participating in SPG is if you just get lip service and "pretend" upgrades?

Part IV: The Long March Home
CA 985 PVG-SFO

As all good things must come to an end, it eventually came time to return home. We were taking Air China 985 back to San Francisco, departing the new Pudong International Airport at 5:50 PM, arriving in SFO at 1:05 PM or so the same day. Unfortunately, dark glowering clouds were threatening to unleash their fury upon us all day, and finally broke out in heavy rain in the afternoon as we were making the long drive to PVG from Shanghai proper. I never really realized it was so inconvenient compared to Hongqiao, which I suppose is why they are building the maglev train to connect Shanghai to PVG. In any case, it was pretty stormy by the time we arrived at the airport. PVG, is new, modern, huge, and...empty. The place was deserted when we pulled up, and there were a total of 3 flights other than ours departing for the rest of the day from the international terminal.

Checkin was chaotic, as the lines were not set up appropriately. They were like Trader Joe's checkout lines, for those of you familiar with the store (or at least the two I've been to). IE, there was a line behind each agent, and in order to leave after checking in, you had to turn around and push your way back through the line to get out. People were getting run over by luggage carts and small children were flying every which way. Once we had struggled to the front, we once again asked if we could select better seats, and were told once again that all seats had been preassigned. This time, however, I did get a window; albeit in the back of the bus.

The boarding process wasn't really a process. People just randomly formed a line in front of the doors some 10 minutes before boarding was supposed to begin -- but I don't think it's a particularly Chinese thing because the people at the beginning of the line were clearly American tourists. The doors were then opened and at least 40 people had gone through before the announcement was made that boarding was about the commence. First class/row numbers were thrown to the winds as people just crammed aboard. Within 15 minutes everyone was in their seats. Pretty amazing, and goes to show boarding by row numbers isn't always fastest.

If we were worried that the flight would be delayed due to weather, we needn't have bothered. Pushback was again PRECISELY on time. Takeoff was the most frightening I have ever experienced. There must have been winds, because as we gained speed the 747 started careening from one side to the other -- it was like we were speeding down Lombard Street in San Francisco. Upon liftoff, we banked to one side, and immediately corrected the other way, and had some pretty hefty turbulence all the way up to cruising altitude. When things had calmed a bit, dinner was served. Beef or fish with fried rice, smoked salmon, chocolate mousse, a roll, multiple drink services. Once again not the most delicious, but generous helpings. Like the outbound flight, turkey sandwiches were again distributed immediately after dinner was cleared -- no one wanted to eat them, my friends were asleep, the flight attendent handed me a bunch, and I ended up sitting for the rest of the flight with a stack of sandwiches on the armrest.

Being exhausted from a week of group touring, I zonked out until breakfast was served. This is, I think, a testament to the comfort of Air China's coach seats. I sleep on airplanes with much difficulty -- I flew NRT-SFO on ANA in Business last year and couldn't even fall asleep then, even though I was only slightly less tired. Breakfast was porridge or omelet. The porridge was a lump of sticky moist purple rice that looked less than appetizing. The omelet was oddly flaky, but there was a lot of it and a lot of potatoes too.

We eventually landed in SFO slightly early and, to my surprise, taxied to the G terminal, which is for United and Star Alliance carriers. We had departed from the A terminal. Apparently, Air China has moved to G -- does this lend increased credence to the rumors that CA might join Star Alliance? Too bad they didn't do so before this trip. I could have used the UA status miles.

The arrivals facilities at the new SFO IT are larger, but more sterile and less pleasant than the old IT. Customs officers were being unpleasant, I'm assuming because of our point of origination. I've never had such annoyances arriving from NRT or Europe. If customs do single out certain flights for more stringent checks, I think the policy is absurd since people can connect in NRT or CDG or whatever from just about anywhere.

Part V: I Get Home
UA 212/228 SJC-IAD-BOS

After spending one night in , I had to rush home before Monday. I draggled myself out of bed to get catch the 8:00 A319 from SJC to IAD, connecting through to BOS. The flight wasn't full, with all middle seats empty except for (you guessed it!) mine. The flight was delayed for about 5 minutes because of some stupid glitch with the pressurization system. The mechanics had to reboot the computer to fix it -- you would think Airbus would have rethought their reliance on computers after a computer flew an A320 into the trees at that airshow a while back. I've only been on an A319 twice in my entire life and both times the flight had some petty mechanical. Last time it was a broken potable water system. Maybe it's just coincidence, but I wonder.

Everything else was typical. I was subjected to Pretty Woman once again. The connecting flight IAD-BOS left on time but sat on the taxiway for half an hour for some reason or another. The air conditioning wasn't working for some reason, and it was sweltering. People were fiddling with their air vents, trying in vain to coax some precious air out of them. From the back, you could see dozens of arms desperately reaching upwards...it was all pretty pathetic. Upon reaching Boston, some bozos decided to leave some containers in front of our gate, so we had to sit for 30 minutes while they moved them out of the way. At this point the engine had shut down, and the woman next to me began going crazy because of an annoying humming noise -- I'm assuming it was the hydraulics spinning up. I hadn't noticed it until she mentioned it, and then it started getting on my nerves as well. We were eventually let off, and boy was I glad to be home.

nice report, robinhood. i'm showing some friends around china next week and was feeling guilty because the only flights i could swing for them were the same as yours (with the exception of pek-sha, which we have yet to book). but, i'm sure they'll appreciate the 34" pitch. a couple of questions:

1) they're booked directly thru air china? does that preclude them from getting NW miles?

2) were there jacks in the seats for electronic headphones? (delta has also started using those plastic things again, but if you have your own headphones, you can use them if you want.)

3) any advice on seats would also be appreciated.

thanks.
-ses-

Hi Moondog,

Tickets booked through Air China should get NW miles with no problem. The only thing is that if you want status miles, the tickets must be booked as NW flight numbers. Although I have yet to receive my miles -- NW says it may take 2 months.

There are jacks for electronic headphones in the seats along with the pneumatic jacks. I don't know if they worked since I didn't use them, but the console looked pretty up-to-date. I didn't know that Delta has started using the plastic nasties again. How interesting! I've been boycotting Delta since they screwed me over big time in DFW. My first Delta flight in 12 years is in August, and that's only because the transcon fare was $78 RT. I figured occupying a seat at that price is even better than boycotting.

As for advice on seats, I suggest you call Air China directly prior to arriving at the airport for seat assignments, or you'll get the "all the seats are preassigned" routine. Some of the rows in the middle of the cabin clearly have less legroom, and some toward the front have loads. For instance bulkhead 15 and 16 (the non-bulkhead row behind it) are the first rows of the second cabin of coach (I think) and 16HJK was shockingly comfortable looking. I remember wondering whether all the passengers in that row just had really short thighs or whether they had half a foot of extra leg room.

I hope you and your friends have fun. And don't feel guilty -- I'd actually feel more guilty booking people on Northwest's ancient 742s with their 31" pitch.

[This message has been edited by robinhood (edited 07-02-2001).]

hi robinhood,
once again, great reporting! I was wondering about the UA flight from SJC-IAD-BOS. I'm going to be on that same flight this weekend. Can you tell me the flying time and also the load on the flight?
Thanks
Terence

Hi tfung,

I've taken the morning SJC-IAD several times, almost always on Sundays though, so I can't speak for other days of the week. In my experience, coach is never very full, usually sufficiently empty to guarantee open middle seats in almost all rows. I don't know about F loads. Flight time is usually just over 4 hours. Once we did it in like 3:45, no kidding. Everything depends on the tailwinds.

The IAD-BOS flight was pretty full for some reason or another. Maybe because it connects with a large bank of flights, I don't know. I've been on noon-ish IAD-BOS flights that have had 5 people on them. Flight time is like an hour, an hour 15, something like that.

The only problem with this flight sequence as currently scheduled (despite the 2900 status miles) is that it leaves a 1:15 layover at Dulles. If you arrive early, as is usually the case, you can probably standby for the 4:30 BOS flight -- is this why you wanted to know about flight times? I think this problem gets ameliorated in the fall when 212 gets pushed back by half an hour.

thanks for answering my questions, robinhood. i just got off the phone with air china (the toll free number rang forever so i had to call the SF number instead) and added some FF#s to my friends' reservations. they couldn't give them seat assignments though they did note my request for a window and aisle in the same row.

THanks for your trip report. I am planning a trip to PEK and PVG in November using a great UA fare from SEA. (Will likely do the SHA-PEK segment on Air China.)

Am just debating if the weather is too cold at that time of year...

Great trip report. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Great report. Sounds like you lucked out with your Air China flights. I've flown on them a bit and couldn't say my experiences were too good. But I've found Air China (and China Eastern) to be a STACK better than the smaller airlines like Yunnan, China Northwest and China Northern.

As for the safety fears you had taking off from Shanghai - I can relate. About 10 years ago I was in a CAAC 707 and we landed at Hong Kong during a typhoon. We were the only plane that even attempted to land... everything else was diverted to Taipei and Manila.

And just last year I was in a China Yunnan 733 which took off from Lijiang during zero-visibility fog & rain. And the airport there is 100% surrounded by mountains. I think I sweated off about 10kgs during that take-off.

Once again, great report http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

MD

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by das:
THanks for your trip report. I am planning a trip to PEK and PVG in November using a great UA fare from SEA. (Will likely do the SHA-PEK segment on Air China.)

Am just debating if the weather is too cold at that time of year...</font>

Late October/Early November is probably the BEST time to visit Beijing (less polluted and not too hot). Shanghai outside of the summer is also quite nice, so you should have a great time.

As for the PEK-SHA/PVG legs, there are at least four or five carriers on that route. China Eastern is quite reliable if you don't want to fly Air China. Just choose your flight based on the equipment being used. It ranges from 777s to MD-80s.

my experience with Shanghai in November was pretty gray and dreary. I was there the whole month in 1999 and can only recall about 2-3 days of decent sunshine, some semi-sunny but very hazy days, and the rest gray and drizzly, damp and chilly. even got freezing rain one night.

nice report... PVG is still dead? it had only been open for a week or so when I landed and the UA 744 from NRT was the only plane there. the UA people at ROC, where I originated, had no idea where PVG was and assumed I was going to PVD. duh.

a month later PVG-NRT the airport was still dead, and the doorknob of the pee-scented restroom snapped off in my hand when I tried to exit.

my entire trip was like that, but I had a great time anyway http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif