Jiatong

Also prefer T1 & T2 fast process. HU is great there !

moondog

T1 is nice only because of its small size, but it is a dreadful place to spend 6 hours. AS miles aren't sufficiently compelling to justify me enduring HU. I also dislike MU/FM and T2, but at least they have lots of flights to Shanghai.

jiejie

Can you think of a single airport or terminal in the PRC that is a wonderful place to spend 6 hours?

travelinmanS

HKG in the Pier FC lounge...although 6 hours is pushing it.

Other than that....no

STS-134

PEK T3 is really one of the worst uses of space I've seen at modern airports. While most airports have a lot of convex and concave corners to their terminal buildings (the idea being to be able to maximize the number of planes that can park at as many gates as possible), PEK just has them all lined up side by side for the most part, and planes have to forever park on the tarmac and unload into buses. They even unload 773s on the tarmac which is insane.

I hope they at least rebuild the security checkpoint because the security check after immigration always has ridiculously long lines. As a bonus, I won't have to look at the place and remember exactly where I was standing when the Warriors lost game 7 to the Cavaliers.

jiejie

I stipulated "in the PRC". Hong Kong is most definitely not that.

jiejie

Landing fees for using tarmac/bus gates are substantially cheaper at PEK vs jetways. Some airlines prefer to cheap out on certain routes. Also, some aircraft that aren't turning around immediately but are parking many hours or overnight, get the tarmac unload treatment. It's always been this way at PEK, even a decade before T3 was built or before PEK really got a lot of air traffic/passenger load.

STS-134

Interesting...first mention I've had that the fees charged depend on where you unload. CA must be a really cheap airline then, as they unloaded on the tarmac on KIX-PEK and SHA-PEK, the latter being a 773 that unloaded on the tarmac. HKG-PEK unloaded onto a jetway though. But the point is that if they had enough jetways, they wouldn't have to offer discounts to unload on the tarmac.

moondog

I don't mean to split hairs because I fully grasp your point, but HK is most definitely part of the PRC.

travelinmanS

Oh, it most definitely is....

travelinmanS

I get the feeling it has more to do with planes being turned around between international and domestic destinations where there are 2 different terminals. Instead of offloading the plane at one terminal and then towing it to the other, they just use a bus gate and bus the pax in and out. I'm not a fan of the bus gates either but it does get you dropped off right at baggage claim rather than the trek you sometimes have to make from the regular gates.

STS-134

By the way, between the CA F and J lounges in T3, there are escalators that go down to...somewhere, and I have never seen them in use. They are always blocked off. What is down there?

drewguy

"One country two systems" and all that.

That said, I didn't take your statement to include airports in HKG, or TPE for that matter.

drewguy

Do they not have enough jetways? Terminal 3D is mostly empty, and 3E always seems to have a lot of space. I don't think they're subsidizing the buses to move planes off jetways . . . I've assumed it's just the cheaper alternative.

drewguy

They seem to have figured on a high speed train, but it looks like it will drop you pretty far from the center of Beijing - it just gets you into the subway system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Ai...Beijing_Subway

In fact, I'm trying to figure out whom Caoqiao serves - travelers going into the middle of town are at least a couple of line changes from getting where they want