Beijing Again (First to Shanghai): Dragonair & Air China, First Class
Jan 25, 2005, 9:54 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 1,011
Beijing Again (First to Shanghai): Dragonair & Air China, First Class
When we opted to do Beijing again, we opted for KA instead of the other Hong Kong based carrier Cathay Pacific. Not only were the times much better (eight daily services compared to one, for starters), flying KA also enabled us to patch in Shanghai. I couldn’t find much information on Dragonair on FlyerTalk before flying, so hopefully this trip report will be of some use to those considering using the airline. And if not, it makes a nice change for me from writing another Cathay Pacific report, anyway. 
A major plus of choosing Dragonair, aside from the obvious ones to do with timing, is that they offer First Class on their A330-300 aircraft, which fly some of the flights to Shanghai Pudong and Beijing. Hunting around on their website, their description of their First Class sounded similar to CX’s New Business Class. Nevertheless, it’s my holiday and I do what I want – and I wanted First Class. So I booked and assigned four seats HKG-PVG and PEK-HKG with a pleasant tingle of anticipation and booked four First Class seats from Shanghai Hongqiao to Beijing on Air China, with an uncomfortable feeling of apprehension. The Air China aircraft Cathay Pacific leased in the late 1990s still make me shiver with dread.
For a change, we’d not be on our own this time either. After a lot of complicated family discussion and planning we tagged my cousin M, on his university break, and his friend K along for the ride. I still wasn’t too sure of the merits of having to look after (in the sense of making sure both he and K returned alive and with all of their limbs still attached, not as in ‘have you brushed your teeth’) them but I was assured that by those respectively responsible for them that they “would be fine”. I nearly bit my tongue off from blurting what was in my mind out loud, but in the end everything was sorted out and for one week, we would be one big group of merry minstrels. By the end of the trip I’d still not gotten used to booking tables for four…
Flight: KA804
Aircraft: Airbus 330-300, B-HYB
Departure time: 1045
Departure gate: 15
Sector: HKG PVG
With four irritable people on our way to the airport (none of us are early risers) and the luggage (even though we are light packers, we still had one bag each plus a carryon shared between couples) it made sense to call for a taxi rather than shell out for a taxi plus the Airport Express. M and K were on the way to the airport, so we loaded on board first, swung by to pick them up, and a smooth 45 minute ride later we were being dropped off at Zone 3 in HKIA.
Dragonair take up one side of island F, the sole First Class counter nearest the level ramps. The agent manning the F counter was having a chat with her colleague across the belt doing J, which was also empty, but immediately broke off her conversation as we approached – a good impression so far!
On Dragonair, First Class carries a gold colour scheme, Business Class blue and Economy Class red. Lounge invitiations are silver. Considering we were a party of four, the formalities were completed reasonably quickly and after requesting two oversized luggage tags for the handcarries, to get them past the security guards on duty, I was impressed at how the agent personally left her seat, went round the counter and affixed them onto the bags, instead of telling us to put the handcarries on the belt or giving the tags to us to do it ourselves (which I wouldn’tve minded doing, but the way she did it made the whole thing that much more personal, which was great).
Island F is more or less in the middle of the terminal, but since the lounge was opposite gate 16 we went through North Immigration. Absolutely no hassles – part of the tag on the handcarry was ripped off to stop re-use, our boarding passes were checked, HK Immigration had all four of our ID cards processed within a minute and security was completed equally breezily. SOME airports (*cough that sounds like “Sydney”*) could learn from Hong Kong…
With the opening of the Skymart extensions jutting out at gates 15 and 21, the escalators have been reconfigured slightly. They’re now off to one side instead of right in front of you as you exit the screening area, and have two going down and one going up, which helps speed things up a little. I’m not so sure the emphasis on shops is a terribly successful strategy – all four of us walked straight past – but hey, what do I know.
The entrance to the mezzanine Dragonair lounge is opposite gate 16, but the up escalator was busted so we had to take the lift. Once (back) up on level 7, there are two frosted-glass button-controlled sliding doors – one for the KA lounge and one for the CNAC lounge. There were two ladies on reception duty at KA, one of whom was on the phone complaining to presumably Engineering about the broken escalator. The other took our lounge invitations and told us to make ourselves comfortable.
The Dragonair lounge is right at the end of level 7 in the north hall – it’s basically a rectangle extending from halfway between gates 16 and 17 to opposite gates 18 and 19. The colour scheme is a red and purple which looked horrible in the photos but looks better in real life, since it gets tempered by some wood panelling, the clear glass dividers (as opposed CX’s frosted ones in The Wing) and HKIA’s sweeping ceilings.
There was next to nobody in the lounge, it being a Sunday and we quickly spread ourselves out over three seating areas looking out over gate 17 (each seating area being able to seat five at a pinch, four comfortably and having a small coffee table). Almost immediately after throwing down our coats we showed where our priorities lay – M and K, they of the technology generation, made straight for the desktop computers, companion to check out the food and me to the newspapers area to grab a copy of the Sunday Morning Post. I do love their weekly Sociology grid – a pity they never publish it online.
M and K seemed to be getting rather frustrated at the two desktops closer to us; their strikes on the keyboard seemed to be getting progressively louder and M was talking to it (he seemed to be threatening it with some sort of painful disintegration by hammer if it didn’t do something constructive). In the end they had to admit defeat – it seems the KA computers were on holiday too – and they moved down to the end of the lounge near gates 18 and 19 where there was another console with four PCs to try their luck there. In the meantime, companion returned with a bowl of noodles from the noodle stand tucked away in the corner, planted himself at the table with the busted desktops and began slurping happily away.
We’d beaten our aircraft to HKIA (CX’s B-HUJ was still loading pax for Singapore and Jakarta at 15), even though we only had a little over an hour to go for scheduled departure. The noodles were giving off a divine scent that was making my tastebuds tingle so after skimming the rest of the Post, which was devoted primarily to the tsunami clearup, I too went to see what KA had on offer. Their food area runs in an L-shape bar away from the ‘airside’ area and had the usual breakfast stuff – bakery products, biscuits – all the usual nibbles with nothing special to remark on. In terms of hot offerings, they had baked beans, dim sum (meat and veggies dumplings) and of course the noodle stand, where they had someone on hand to whip up your (limited) preference of noodles.
The way it worked was that they had a pile of little paper slips in a wicker basket on one side, along with a rubber-banded pen (you know the sort I mean, the one where they tie a length of elastic around the pen to a stake in the wall so nobody tries to snitch it… as if anyone would
) and you tick what type of noodles you want and what you want on the side (or in the soup, as the case may be). It was not what one would call a strenuous decision: the choice was between shrimp dumplings (actually ‘shui gaw’) or fish balls for the sides, and a choice between egg (wonton) noodles and rice (‘hor fun’) noodles. (Apologies for my attempts at phoneticising Cantonese. )
You hand the slip to the grumpy lady behind the counter – well, not grumpy exactly, but she wasn’t exactly looking thrilled to be there – she gives you a plasticky square with a big number on it from a tray in front of her, on which lies the duplicate number. She tells you to go away for two minutes by which time your order will have appeared on the tray. In that two minutes is just enough time to pour yourself a glass of orange or apple juice, or grab another drink from the fridge.
Condiments like spring onion and chilli oil, paper napkins, ceramic spoons and wooden chopsticks are available off to one side of the noodle stand. Dragonair have also set up five or six small round wooden tables extending parallel with one side of the bar, away from the noodle stand to make it easier to eat. Verdict on the noodles: very nice (I had the shrimp dumplings with egg noodles), although the chilli oil was a bit disappointing (not chilli enough). I got a few dumplings from the dim sum selection and plopped them in too, since the two shrimp dumplings that came with the soup really weren’t enough, and the other ones were calling out temptingly.
After we had all slurped down our share of noodles, it was a quick visit to the bathroom before heading down to gate 15, which was visible from the lounge and hence made it very easy to keep a track on the boarding status. No boarding announcements in the KA lounge, thank goodness, unlike the Sydney QF lounge where they seem to have a lounge agent employed for that very purpose.
The bathrooms are done in a nice soothing wood scheme, very spacious and much nicer than The Wing’s granite do which sometimes takes on the feeling of a crypt. On the downside, there weren’t as many amenities but all I really needed was a working tap, and there were plenty of those (five, in fact).
Gate 15 was now showing ‘Now Boarding’ despite the fact that the number of people milling around in the waiting area didn’t look like they’d fill up an A320, let alone an A330, but we rounded up our things and scooted off downstairs anyway. The broken up-escalator had been fixed, and we reversed back to gate 15.
I have never seen a boarding gate this empty at HKIA during general boarding. The F/J line was almost as long as the Y line, and there was only one other person in front of us. The agent fed our boarding passes through the machine, gave the stubs back to us and gestured us on our way. 15 is a long gate, so the F/J and Y lines merge together into another downwards ramp before splitting into the two airbridges. Maybe because of this, one poor agent had to stand at the entrance to bridge 1 checking boarding passes, so only F/J pax got through. While it was certainly a nice thought, it probably wasn’t strictly necessary since HKIA clearly marks that the first bridge is for F and J class only, and my experience has been that most people follow the signs.
A major plus of choosing Dragonair, aside from the obvious ones to do with timing, is that they offer First Class on their A330-300 aircraft, which fly some of the flights to Shanghai Pudong and Beijing. Hunting around on their website, their description of their First Class sounded similar to CX’s New Business Class. Nevertheless, it’s my holiday and I do what I want – and I wanted First Class. So I booked and assigned four seats HKG-PVG and PEK-HKG with a pleasant tingle of anticipation and booked four First Class seats from Shanghai Hongqiao to Beijing on Air China, with an uncomfortable feeling of apprehension. The Air China aircraft Cathay Pacific leased in the late 1990s still make me shiver with dread.
For a change, we’d not be on our own this time either. After a lot of complicated family discussion and planning we tagged my cousin M, on his university break, and his friend K along for the ride. I still wasn’t too sure of the merits of having to look after (in the sense of making sure both he and K returned alive and with all of their limbs still attached, not as in ‘have you brushed your teeth’) them but I was assured that by those respectively responsible for them that they “would be fine”. I nearly bit my tongue off from blurting what was in my mind out loud, but in the end everything was sorted out and for one week, we would be one big group of merry minstrels. By the end of the trip I’d still not gotten used to booking tables for four…
Flight: KA804
Aircraft: Airbus 330-300, B-HYB
Departure time: 1045
Departure gate: 15
Sector: HKG PVG
With four irritable people on our way to the airport (none of us are early risers) and the luggage (even though we are light packers, we still had one bag each plus a carryon shared between couples) it made sense to call for a taxi rather than shell out for a taxi plus the Airport Express. M and K were on the way to the airport, so we loaded on board first, swung by to pick them up, and a smooth 45 minute ride later we were being dropped off at Zone 3 in HKIA.
Dragonair take up one side of island F, the sole First Class counter nearest the level ramps. The agent manning the F counter was having a chat with her colleague across the belt doing J, which was also empty, but immediately broke off her conversation as we approached – a good impression so far!
On Dragonair, First Class carries a gold colour scheme, Business Class blue and Economy Class red. Lounge invitiations are silver. Considering we were a party of four, the formalities were completed reasonably quickly and after requesting two oversized luggage tags for the handcarries, to get them past the security guards on duty, I was impressed at how the agent personally left her seat, went round the counter and affixed them onto the bags, instead of telling us to put the handcarries on the belt or giving the tags to us to do it ourselves (which I wouldn’tve minded doing, but the way she did it made the whole thing that much more personal, which was great).
Island F is more or less in the middle of the terminal, but since the lounge was opposite gate 16 we went through North Immigration. Absolutely no hassles – part of the tag on the handcarry was ripped off to stop re-use, our boarding passes were checked, HK Immigration had all four of our ID cards processed within a minute and security was completed equally breezily. SOME airports (*cough that sounds like “Sydney”*) could learn from Hong Kong…
With the opening of the Skymart extensions jutting out at gates 15 and 21, the escalators have been reconfigured slightly. They’re now off to one side instead of right in front of you as you exit the screening area, and have two going down and one going up, which helps speed things up a little. I’m not so sure the emphasis on shops is a terribly successful strategy – all four of us walked straight past – but hey, what do I know.
The entrance to the mezzanine Dragonair lounge is opposite gate 16, but the up escalator was busted so we had to take the lift. Once (back) up on level 7, there are two frosted-glass button-controlled sliding doors – one for the KA lounge and one for the CNAC lounge. There were two ladies on reception duty at KA, one of whom was on the phone complaining to presumably Engineering about the broken escalator. The other took our lounge invitations and told us to make ourselves comfortable.
The Dragonair lounge is right at the end of level 7 in the north hall – it’s basically a rectangle extending from halfway between gates 16 and 17 to opposite gates 18 and 19. The colour scheme is a red and purple which looked horrible in the photos but looks better in real life, since it gets tempered by some wood panelling, the clear glass dividers (as opposed CX’s frosted ones in The Wing) and HKIA’s sweeping ceilings.
There was next to nobody in the lounge, it being a Sunday and we quickly spread ourselves out over three seating areas looking out over gate 17 (each seating area being able to seat five at a pinch, four comfortably and having a small coffee table). Almost immediately after throwing down our coats we showed where our priorities lay – M and K, they of the technology generation, made straight for the desktop computers, companion to check out the food and me to the newspapers area to grab a copy of the Sunday Morning Post. I do love their weekly Sociology grid – a pity they never publish it online.
M and K seemed to be getting rather frustrated at the two desktops closer to us; their strikes on the keyboard seemed to be getting progressively louder and M was talking to it (he seemed to be threatening it with some sort of painful disintegration by hammer if it didn’t do something constructive). In the end they had to admit defeat – it seems the KA computers were on holiday too – and they moved down to the end of the lounge near gates 18 and 19 where there was another console with four PCs to try their luck there. In the meantime, companion returned with a bowl of noodles from the noodle stand tucked away in the corner, planted himself at the table with the busted desktops and began slurping happily away.
We’d beaten our aircraft to HKIA (CX’s B-HUJ was still loading pax for Singapore and Jakarta at 15), even though we only had a little over an hour to go for scheduled departure. The noodles were giving off a divine scent that was making my tastebuds tingle so after skimming the rest of the Post, which was devoted primarily to the tsunami clearup, I too went to see what KA had on offer. Their food area runs in an L-shape bar away from the ‘airside’ area and had the usual breakfast stuff – bakery products, biscuits – all the usual nibbles with nothing special to remark on. In terms of hot offerings, they had baked beans, dim sum (meat and veggies dumplings) and of course the noodle stand, where they had someone on hand to whip up your (limited) preference of noodles.
The way it worked was that they had a pile of little paper slips in a wicker basket on one side, along with a rubber-banded pen (you know the sort I mean, the one where they tie a length of elastic around the pen to a stake in the wall so nobody tries to snitch it… as if anyone would
) and you tick what type of noodles you want and what you want on the side (or in the soup, as the case may be). It was not what one would call a strenuous decision: the choice was between shrimp dumplings (actually ‘shui gaw’) or fish balls for the sides, and a choice between egg (wonton) noodles and rice (‘hor fun’) noodles. (Apologies for my attempts at phoneticising Cantonese. )You hand the slip to the grumpy lady behind the counter – well, not grumpy exactly, but she wasn’t exactly looking thrilled to be there – she gives you a plasticky square with a big number on it from a tray in front of her, on which lies the duplicate number. She tells you to go away for two minutes by which time your order will have appeared on the tray. In that two minutes is just enough time to pour yourself a glass of orange or apple juice, or grab another drink from the fridge.
Condiments like spring onion and chilli oil, paper napkins, ceramic spoons and wooden chopsticks are available off to one side of the noodle stand. Dragonair have also set up five or six small round wooden tables extending parallel with one side of the bar, away from the noodle stand to make it easier to eat. Verdict on the noodles: very nice (I had the shrimp dumplings with egg noodles), although the chilli oil was a bit disappointing (not chilli enough). I got a few dumplings from the dim sum selection and plopped them in too, since the two shrimp dumplings that came with the soup really weren’t enough, and the other ones were calling out temptingly.
After we had all slurped down our share of noodles, it was a quick visit to the bathroom before heading down to gate 15, which was visible from the lounge and hence made it very easy to keep a track on the boarding status. No boarding announcements in the KA lounge, thank goodness, unlike the Sydney QF lounge where they seem to have a lounge agent employed for that very purpose.
The bathrooms are done in a nice soothing wood scheme, very spacious and much nicer than The Wing’s granite do which sometimes takes on the feeling of a crypt. On the downside, there weren’t as many amenities but all I really needed was a working tap, and there were plenty of those (five, in fact).
Gate 15 was now showing ‘Now Boarding’ despite the fact that the number of people milling around in the waiting area didn’t look like they’d fill up an A320, let alone an A330, but we rounded up our things and scooted off downstairs anyway. The broken up-escalator had been fixed, and we reversed back to gate 15.
I have never seen a boarding gate this empty at HKIA during general boarding. The F/J line was almost as long as the Y line, and there was only one other person in front of us. The agent fed our boarding passes through the machine, gave the stubs back to us and gestured us on our way. 15 is a long gate, so the F/J and Y lines merge together into another downwards ramp before splitting into the two airbridges. Maybe because of this, one poor agent had to stand at the entrance to bridge 1 checking boarding passes, so only F/J pax got through. While it was certainly a nice thought, it probably wasn’t strictly necessary since HKIA clearly marks that the first bridge is for F and J class only, and my experience has been that most people follow the signs.
Jan 25, 2005, 9:54 pm
#2
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 1,011
First Impression
We were welcomed aboard by the Chief Purser and one of her flight attendants, who accepted our boarding stubs and showed us to our seats. We had pre-booked the two pairs on the left hand side of the aircraft (1AC and 2AC) so it wasn’t that difficult to find, but we gladly took her up on the offer to hang our coats up, to the extent that she had to make two round trips.
Dragonair’s First Class cabin is configured two rows of 2-2-2, with the seats very similar to Cathay’s NBC product but slightly bulkier. Their product team chose a purple upholstery with yellow trimming, which, like the lounge pictures, looked awful on their website but is actually better in real life. 10.4 inch PTVs are mounted on the seatbacks or bulkheads in front of the seats, set into a wood frame. There are two toilets for First Class, mirror-imaged across the cabin in front of 1AC and 1HK.
Despite the seats being new, having been retrofitted for only a couple of years, the rest of the cabin was showing its age – the closet snap-clips which were originally a metallic red were showing noticeable signs of chipping, to the extent that there was more silver showing than red. But the cabin itself was very clean and everything in good working order. There were already nice big pillows on the seats in the same yellow colour as the headrest flap, and blankets were stowed in the overhead lockers. Like most airlines, Dragonair have opted not for the centre bins in the First Class section of their A330s.
The flight attendant came round to introduce herself and take orders for pre-take-off drinks, while the other flight attendant darted around putting headphones in the seat pockets and offering newspapers. Just the normal headphones – no noise-cancelling features or anything like that, although since the flight time would be less than two hours, it didn’t bother any of us at all.
It turned out that loads were very very light – we were the only four passengers in First, the Business cabin behind us wasn’t even half full, and from the queues at boarding I can’t imagine that Economy would have been much of a different story. The result was that doors were closed well ahead of schedule, and after a brief introduction from the (American or Canadian, judging by his accent) captain, we were on our way.
The safety video played on our PTV screens: quite a decent production, with dual Cantonese and English dubbing (and Chinese subtitles for the Mandarin-speaking passengers). The background music was very nice, although the ‘actors’ could certainly use some improvement – when the oxygen masks popped down the looks of surprise were a little overdone, and for some bizarre reason there was this creepy guy in glasses who smiled and nodded when his seatmate did up his seatbelt.
Not quite sure what his role was – if I had been his seatmate and he looked at me like that I’d be moving as fast as I could in the other direction.
Departures were to the east today, so HYB rattled her way down the airport to 07R. Engines roaring and a brief takeoff run later, we’d started our 1 hour 50 minutes flight to Shanghai Pudong International Airport.
The Chief Purser did the usual post-takeoff announcements (what was impressive about Dragonair was that on both legs the Chief Pursers were trilingual in English, Cantonese and Mandarin, doing all three announcements in one long gabble). Thankfully, we were spared any sort of exercise video a la CX’s guy-in-a-park-leaning-against-a-tree-rolling-his-limbs, although Dragonair have something akin to Cathay’s ‘Change for Good’ partnership with unicef, albeit a somewhat cheesy ripoff called ‘Change for Conservation’, which fails to achieve the same sort of double entendre as the former.
After exhausting her voice on the PA, the Chief Purser came round to dispense menus and arrival documentation (arrival card plus health declaration) for China. Measuring approximately 13 x 25 centimetres the cover featured some sort of green colour with thin black horizontal lines, the occasional thick gold line and some sort of drawing in black at the bottom that vaguely resembled, to my eye at least, a peacock doing yoga.
Page 1: Dragonair Presents a Feast for the Palate
The choice of the fine inflight dining options continues to evolve for First and Business Class passengers travelling on selected routes throughout 2004. We are pleased to bring you a selection of the best dishes from some of the most renowned dining rooms: Yan Toh Heen Cantonese Restaurant; Super Star Seafood Restaurant; Dynasty Chinese Restaurant; and Sabatini Italian Restaurant; Shanghai Xiao Nan Guo Restaurant and Shanghai Leonardo’s Italian Restaurant.
Yan Toh Heen – Yan Toh Heen’s authentic Cantonese cuisine has won this showpiece restaurant of the Hotel Inter-Continental Hong Kong international acclaim. Executive Chinese Chef Cheung Kam Chuen is recognised as one of Hong Kong’s top chefs, renowned for his traditional Chinese specialities and the expert preparation of seasonal delicacies.
Sabitini – Sabatini is an institution in Rome, and has gained an equally impressive reputation at its sister restaurant at The Royal Garden Hotel in Hong Kong. Famed for its simple, traditional Roman dishes, the family run restaurant represents Italian cooking at its finest and most delicious.
And after that little word from our sponsors, we get to the important stuff (well, to me, at least):
Page 2: LUNCH/DINNER
HONG KONG – SHANGHAI
Crab Meat Avocado Timbale
Stir-fried Scallop with Crab Roe and Egg <Yan Toh Heen logo here>
Steamed Rice
or
Today’s Special
or
Grilled Veal Tenderloin wrapped with Pancetta
on Roasted Portobello with Saffron Cauliflower Sauce
Sage Potato and Kenya Bean <Sabitini logo here>
Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream <Haagen-Dazs logo here>
or
Hazelnut Chocolate Cake
Bread Basket
Proudly Serving Pacific Coffee <Pacific Coffee logo here>
Fook Ming Tea Shop <Fook Ming Tong Tea Shop logo here>
Anqui Super Oolong, Zhejiang Jasmine Mao Feng
Tea – Ceylon, English Breakfast Tea, Earl Grey, Camomile, Japanese, Jasmine, Oolong, Hong Kong Style Milk Tea
De-caffeinated Coffee
Pralines – GODIVA Chocolatier
* Vegetarian Main Course is also available on request. Please contact our flight attendants.
Insert: DAILY SPECIAL
Sunday
Steamed Chicken with Abalone and Air-dried Ham
Steamed Rice and Stir-fried Wild Mushroom
Monday
Grilled Chicken Breast with Morel Sauce
Shiitake Polenta with Pumpkin, Zucchini and Asparagus
Tuesday
Pan-fried Beef with Abalone Sauce
Stir-fried Noodles with Mixed Vegetables
Wednesday
Thyme Scented Pork Chop with Porcini Mushroom Sauce
Spatzle with Assorted Vegetables
Thursday
Braised Beef Roulade with Bacon
Steamed Rice and Broccoli
Friday
Five Spice Spareribs with Honey Chili Sauce
Steamed Rice and Chinese Vegetables
Saturday
Grilled Chicken Breast with Port Wine Sauce
Garlic Roasted New Potatoes and Zucchini
Page 3: Chinese transliteration of page 2
Page 4: Wine and Cocktail Selection
Aperitifs & Cocktails
Sweet/Dry Vermouth, Campari, Bloody Mary, Screwdriver, Sweet/Dry Martini, Manhattan, Bacardi Rum, Gordon Gin, Smirnoff Vodka
Whiskies
Chivas Regal 12 Yrs Scotch Whisky, Maker’s Mark Bourbon
Champagne
Moet & Chandon, Brut Imperial NV
White Wine
Saint Verain 2001 (Cote d’or, France)
Sauvignon Blanc 2003 (Margaret River, Australia)
Red Wine
Saint-Estephe 2000 (Medoc, France)
Langmeil Shiraz 2001 (Barossa Valley, Australia)
Liquers
Cointreau / Baileys
Cognac
Hennessy XO
Port
Dow’s Port 97
Page 2 was the one I was most interested in, and as you might imagine, it was a little bit of an eyesore with all the <logos here>. The ‘Daily Special’ idea was quite an interesting one though – a coded notation at the bottom indicated the dishes listed were for this given week only which suggests that this is Dragonair’s way of keeping the menu interested for its frequent China flyers. ^
After giving us a few minutes to peruse the choices and to make a decision, the Chief Purser was back to take the orders, followed swiftly by the flight attendant with lemon yellow tablecloths. Tray tables (standard size) fold out from the armrest and feature a not unattractive wood inlay.
To have some extra space during the meal service I moved across the aisle to 1D (companion in 1A immediately took advantage of the empty 1C by dumping his newspaper on it, which shows how much he missed me), but M and K decided against moving or couldn’t be bothered, remaining in 2AC.
After that, the trays began flying out from the galley, along with our drinks. Already on the tray was the crab timbale appetiser, an elliptical bread plate, a small packet of butter, and a knife-and-fork set wrapped in the napkin. Also on the tray was one of those small advert-cards (exactly like CX’s) – this one touting Dragonair’s 12 daily services to Shanghai, which did go towards explaining the light loads!
The opinions on the appetiser varied. I’m not a big fan of cold gloopy muck (which is certainly what it tasted like) so I picked at the creamed crab on the bottom and returned a verdict of acceptable, but if I could choose – I wouldn’t. Companion and M hated it, while K loved it. During the course of our discussion (the joys of an empty cabin meant that we could talk across the aisles without worrying about bothering anyone else) the other flight attendant came by with a bread basket (plain, cheese, garlic). I chose the cheese roll which was literally piping hot – I picked it up and dropped it back on the plate immediately, it was that hot – although I thought he [the FA] was slightly stingy with the garlic bread, only giving companion one slice.
Maybe it was because of the short flying time, but the cabin crew were certainly on their toes for this meal service. Appetiser plates were cleared within seconds of them being finished (the diligent flight attendant kept peeping between the galley curtains to check on our progress) and the main courses followed swiftly after. On Dragonair First Class the main course is preplated in a wide, shallow, elliptical white ceramic dish and brought out straight from the galley on a small tray. Since the design of the dish doesn’t lend itself to being gripped by tongs, the flight attendant used one of the yellow linen napkins to transfer it on to the passenger’s tray.
We’d all opted for something different for our main (although none chose the vegetable main), so there were certainly enough to go round. I’d opted for the veal which was delicious ^ Similar verdicts on the scallop and the chicken, although M and companion complained that the serving was on the small side. No such complaints about my choice.
Again, the main dishes were cleared extremely quickly and we were asked for our dessert preferences. They’d loaded three different flavours of Haagen-Dazs ice cream (coffee, strawberry, vanilla) and of course there was also the hazelnut cake. Showing our diverse tastes once more, I went for strawberry ice cream as did M. K opted for the cake and pronounced it tasty, but far too sweet.
The ice cream was served in its packaged tub, on a small dish with a doily and a spoon. No need to make use of the little plastic stick that was stuck under the lid…
After the ice cream came an offer of tea or coffee, along with a small dish with two Godiva chocolate squares (milk and dark chocolate). The male flight attendant came round with blankets, which only companion took – the rest of us found the cabin stiflingly hot, which we suspected felt cold to all Hong Kongers on board – Hong Kong natives are notorious for fearing cold. Twenty degrees outside and half the population will be decked out in woollen coats and scarves; 15 degrees bring ominous “COLD” warnings on television weather forecasts and a rush for hotpots. That aside, the feedback on the blankets was not impressive – it was a grey sort of composite staticky material which created numerous yelps from the left hand side of the cabin each time companion shifted position.
Thanks to the low numbers in the cabin and the efficiency of the flight attendants, the whole meal was wrapped up in under an hour, leaving another hour’s flying time to Shanghai. The five channels on the PTV (yes, five – really makes you wonder why they bother ) were showing a combination of sitcoms, news updates and documentaries which I didn’t bother with, and kept the screen on the flight path display. I did try out some of the twelve audio channels, but having been spoiled by Cathay’s Audio on Demand system, cycled songs no longer hold much appeal for me.
Dragonair’s First Class cabin is configured two rows of 2-2-2, with the seats very similar to Cathay’s NBC product but slightly bulkier. Their product team chose a purple upholstery with yellow trimming, which, like the lounge pictures, looked awful on their website but is actually better in real life. 10.4 inch PTVs are mounted on the seatbacks or bulkheads in front of the seats, set into a wood frame. There are two toilets for First Class, mirror-imaged across the cabin in front of 1AC and 1HK.
Despite the seats being new, having been retrofitted for only a couple of years, the rest of the cabin was showing its age – the closet snap-clips which were originally a metallic red were showing noticeable signs of chipping, to the extent that there was more silver showing than red. But the cabin itself was very clean and everything in good working order. There were already nice big pillows on the seats in the same yellow colour as the headrest flap, and blankets were stowed in the overhead lockers. Like most airlines, Dragonair have opted not for the centre bins in the First Class section of their A330s.
The flight attendant came round to introduce herself and take orders for pre-take-off drinks, while the other flight attendant darted around putting headphones in the seat pockets and offering newspapers. Just the normal headphones – no noise-cancelling features or anything like that, although since the flight time would be less than two hours, it didn’t bother any of us at all.
It turned out that loads were very very light – we were the only four passengers in First, the Business cabin behind us wasn’t even half full, and from the queues at boarding I can’t imagine that Economy would have been much of a different story. The result was that doors were closed well ahead of schedule, and after a brief introduction from the (American or Canadian, judging by his accent) captain, we were on our way.
The safety video played on our PTV screens: quite a decent production, with dual Cantonese and English dubbing (and Chinese subtitles for the Mandarin-speaking passengers). The background music was very nice, although the ‘actors’ could certainly use some improvement – when the oxygen masks popped down the looks of surprise were a little overdone, and for some bizarre reason there was this creepy guy in glasses who smiled and nodded when his seatmate did up his seatbelt.
Not quite sure what his role was – if I had been his seatmate and he looked at me like that I’d be moving as fast as I could in the other direction.Departures were to the east today, so HYB rattled her way down the airport to 07R. Engines roaring and a brief takeoff run later, we’d started our 1 hour 50 minutes flight to Shanghai Pudong International Airport.
The Chief Purser did the usual post-takeoff announcements (what was impressive about Dragonair was that on both legs the Chief Pursers were trilingual in English, Cantonese and Mandarin, doing all three announcements in one long gabble). Thankfully, we were spared any sort of exercise video a la CX’s guy-in-a-park-leaning-against-a-tree-rolling-his-limbs, although Dragonair have something akin to Cathay’s ‘Change for Good’ partnership with unicef, albeit a somewhat cheesy ripoff called ‘Change for Conservation’, which fails to achieve the same sort of double entendre as the former.
After exhausting her voice on the PA, the Chief Purser came round to dispense menus and arrival documentation (arrival card plus health declaration) for China. Measuring approximately 13 x 25 centimetres the cover featured some sort of green colour with thin black horizontal lines, the occasional thick gold line and some sort of drawing in black at the bottom that vaguely resembled, to my eye at least, a peacock doing yoga.
Page 1: Dragonair Presents a Feast for the Palate
The choice of the fine inflight dining options continues to evolve for First and Business Class passengers travelling on selected routes throughout 2004. We are pleased to bring you a selection of the best dishes from some of the most renowned dining rooms: Yan Toh Heen Cantonese Restaurant; Super Star Seafood Restaurant; Dynasty Chinese Restaurant; and Sabatini Italian Restaurant; Shanghai Xiao Nan Guo Restaurant and Shanghai Leonardo’s Italian Restaurant.
Yan Toh Heen – Yan Toh Heen’s authentic Cantonese cuisine has won this showpiece restaurant of the Hotel Inter-Continental Hong Kong international acclaim. Executive Chinese Chef Cheung Kam Chuen is recognised as one of Hong Kong’s top chefs, renowned for his traditional Chinese specialities and the expert preparation of seasonal delicacies.
Sabitini – Sabatini is an institution in Rome, and has gained an equally impressive reputation at its sister restaurant at The Royal Garden Hotel in Hong Kong. Famed for its simple, traditional Roman dishes, the family run restaurant represents Italian cooking at its finest and most delicious.
And after that little word from our sponsors, we get to the important stuff (well, to me, at least):
Page 2: LUNCH/DINNER
HONG KONG – SHANGHAI
Crab Meat Avocado Timbale
Stir-fried Scallop with Crab Roe and Egg <Yan Toh Heen logo here>
Steamed Rice
or
Today’s Special
or
Grilled Veal Tenderloin wrapped with Pancetta
on Roasted Portobello with Saffron Cauliflower Sauce
Sage Potato and Kenya Bean <Sabitini logo here>
Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream <Haagen-Dazs logo here>
or
Hazelnut Chocolate Cake
Bread Basket
Proudly Serving Pacific Coffee <Pacific Coffee logo here>
Fook Ming Tea Shop <Fook Ming Tong Tea Shop logo here>
Anqui Super Oolong, Zhejiang Jasmine Mao Feng
Tea – Ceylon, English Breakfast Tea, Earl Grey, Camomile, Japanese, Jasmine, Oolong, Hong Kong Style Milk Tea
De-caffeinated Coffee
Pralines – GODIVA Chocolatier
* Vegetarian Main Course is also available on request. Please contact our flight attendants.
Insert: DAILY SPECIAL
Sunday
Steamed Chicken with Abalone and Air-dried Ham
Steamed Rice and Stir-fried Wild Mushroom
Monday
Grilled Chicken Breast with Morel Sauce
Shiitake Polenta with Pumpkin, Zucchini and Asparagus
Tuesday
Pan-fried Beef with Abalone Sauce
Stir-fried Noodles with Mixed Vegetables
Wednesday
Thyme Scented Pork Chop with Porcini Mushroom Sauce
Spatzle with Assorted Vegetables
Thursday
Braised Beef Roulade with Bacon
Steamed Rice and Broccoli
Friday
Five Spice Spareribs with Honey Chili Sauce
Steamed Rice and Chinese Vegetables
Saturday
Grilled Chicken Breast with Port Wine Sauce
Garlic Roasted New Potatoes and Zucchini
Page 3: Chinese transliteration of page 2
Page 4: Wine and Cocktail Selection
Aperitifs & Cocktails
Sweet/Dry Vermouth, Campari, Bloody Mary, Screwdriver, Sweet/Dry Martini, Manhattan, Bacardi Rum, Gordon Gin, Smirnoff Vodka
Whiskies
Chivas Regal 12 Yrs Scotch Whisky, Maker’s Mark Bourbon
Champagne
Moet & Chandon, Brut Imperial NV
White Wine
Saint Verain 2001 (Cote d’or, France)
Sauvignon Blanc 2003 (Margaret River, Australia)
Red Wine
Saint-Estephe 2000 (Medoc, France)
Langmeil Shiraz 2001 (Barossa Valley, Australia)
Liquers
Cointreau / Baileys
Cognac
Hennessy XO
Port
Dow’s Port 97
Page 2 was the one I was most interested in, and as you might imagine, it was a little bit of an eyesore with all the <logos here>. The ‘Daily Special’ idea was quite an interesting one though – a coded notation at the bottom indicated the dishes listed were for this given week only which suggests that this is Dragonair’s way of keeping the menu interested for its frequent China flyers. ^
After giving us a few minutes to peruse the choices and to make a decision, the Chief Purser was back to take the orders, followed swiftly by the flight attendant with lemon yellow tablecloths. Tray tables (standard size) fold out from the armrest and feature a not unattractive wood inlay.
To have some extra space during the meal service I moved across the aisle to 1D (companion in 1A immediately took advantage of the empty 1C by dumping his newspaper on it, which shows how much he missed me), but M and K decided against moving or couldn’t be bothered, remaining in 2AC.
After that, the trays began flying out from the galley, along with our drinks. Already on the tray was the crab timbale appetiser, an elliptical bread plate, a small packet of butter, and a knife-and-fork set wrapped in the napkin. Also on the tray was one of those small advert-cards (exactly like CX’s) – this one touting Dragonair’s 12 daily services to Shanghai, which did go towards explaining the light loads!
The opinions on the appetiser varied. I’m not a big fan of cold gloopy muck (which is certainly what it tasted like) so I picked at the creamed crab on the bottom and returned a verdict of acceptable, but if I could choose – I wouldn’t. Companion and M hated it, while K loved it. During the course of our discussion (the joys of an empty cabin meant that we could talk across the aisles without worrying about bothering anyone else) the other flight attendant came by with a bread basket (plain, cheese, garlic). I chose the cheese roll which was literally piping hot – I picked it up and dropped it back on the plate immediately, it was that hot – although I thought he [the FA] was slightly stingy with the garlic bread, only giving companion one slice.
Maybe it was because of the short flying time, but the cabin crew were certainly on their toes for this meal service. Appetiser plates were cleared within seconds of them being finished (the diligent flight attendant kept peeping between the galley curtains to check on our progress) and the main courses followed swiftly after. On Dragonair First Class the main course is preplated in a wide, shallow, elliptical white ceramic dish and brought out straight from the galley on a small tray. Since the design of the dish doesn’t lend itself to being gripped by tongs, the flight attendant used one of the yellow linen napkins to transfer it on to the passenger’s tray.
We’d all opted for something different for our main (although none chose the vegetable main), so there were certainly enough to go round. I’d opted for the veal which was delicious ^ Similar verdicts on the scallop and the chicken, although M and companion complained that the serving was on the small side. No such complaints about my choice.
Again, the main dishes were cleared extremely quickly and we were asked for our dessert preferences. They’d loaded three different flavours of Haagen-Dazs ice cream (coffee, strawberry, vanilla) and of course there was also the hazelnut cake. Showing our diverse tastes once more, I went for strawberry ice cream as did M. K opted for the cake and pronounced it tasty, but far too sweet.
The ice cream was served in its packaged tub, on a small dish with a doily and a spoon. No need to make use of the little plastic stick that was stuck under the lid…
After the ice cream came an offer of tea or coffee, along with a small dish with two Godiva chocolate squares (milk and dark chocolate). The male flight attendant came round with blankets, which only companion took – the rest of us found the cabin stiflingly hot, which we suspected felt cold to all Hong Kongers on board – Hong Kong natives are notorious for fearing cold. Twenty degrees outside and half the population will be decked out in woollen coats and scarves; 15 degrees bring ominous “COLD” warnings on television weather forecasts and a rush for hotpots.
That aside, the feedback on the blankets was not impressive – it was a grey sort of composite staticky material which created numerous yelps from the left hand side of the cabin each time companion shifted position.Thanks to the low numbers in the cabin and the efficiency of the flight attendants, the whole meal was wrapped up in under an hour, leaving another hour’s flying time to Shanghai. The five channels on the PTV (yes, five – really makes you wonder why they bother
) were showing a combination of sitcoms, news updates and documentaries which I didn’t bother with, and kept the screen on the flight path display. I did try out some of the twelve audio channels, but having been spoiled by Cathay’s Audio on Demand system, cycled songs no longer hold much appeal for me.
Last edited by B-HXB; Jan 26, 2005 at 2:17 am Reason: Formatting
Jan 25, 2005, 9:56 pm
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 1,011
Playtime
Of course, one thing that was on my must-do list was to play with the seat and see how it compared with other lie-flat seats. From a sitting perspective, the seat scores top marks for stability and comfort, although the fold-out footrest on the extendable legrest seems to have been designed with the short Asian stature in mind (incidentally, this was the one area where Air China’s First Class seat won over Dragonair’s).
Dragonair’s seat control panel is located on the centre armrest, above the (non-detachable) PTV controls. Aside from the usual individual seat up/back, legrest up/back, lumbar up/down controls are the package buttons becoming more common nowadays – one to recline the seat fully into its sleeping position and one to bring it back up for takeoff and landing.
I tried it out on 1G first, hitting the full recline button. The seat moves pretty much like every other lie-flat seat, sliding forward and bringing the legrest up. Like CX’s NBC seat, the KA seat ‘clicked’ into a preset position – although it can recline further one has to keep the full recline button pressed down for five or so seconds before it moves further. I assumed that this was, like on CX’s seat, the recommended Z position for sleeping, although it seemed at a much steeper and uncomfortable angle than on Cathay.
At its full reclined position the Dragonair seat is at an incline of 11 degrees, which is fairly slidey. This was made all the more worse by the fact that in row 1, there is no ‘footstop’ (formed by the back of row 1’s cocoons in row 2) and the bulkhead didn’t do quite the same job because of the angle difference. Verdict: as with Cathay’s lie-flat seat, not comfortable in the fully reclined position, acceptable for catnaps in the Z position and best in the upright and slightly reclined positions (although the cushioning was not as soft as on CX). One strange thing though – the velcroed headrests seemed particularly susceptible to the reclining process, often catching on something and tearing off when the seat was brought back up.
The bathrooms were stocked with the usual potions – soap, bottles of moisturiser and air mist and a flower sprig in the vase fixed to the mirror. A real flower sprig, unlike Cathay who’ve gone for the fake ones post-SARS. However, I would gladly swap the flower for proper hot towels, instead of the antiseptic hand towels the crew kept passing out.
About twenty minutes before landing, the flight attendant came by to ask whether we’d like a final drink and to pass out yet more antiseptic hand towels. By this time I’d moved to my third seat – 1K, so I could have a window seat for landing. Right now HYB was swooping over snow-capped mountain ranges; below us a smaller plane moving diagonally towards our right.
The crew returned our winter coats and after a brief adventure where it appeared that one had been misplaced, we all got our belongings back and HYB was roaring down the runway at Pudong. The first glimpse of the terminal building was very promising: a wide expanse of glass and European widebodies, although it seemed the designers went for long rather than accessibility. Fortunately for us, our assigned gate was 18, which was fairly close to the immigration counters. I pity those who docked at 25, right at the end.
Double airbridges were in play, always a good indicator of civilisation and the Dragonair flight attendants positively scooted down the aisles the second we rolled to a stop, to shut the curtains and stop the four or five Business Class passengers behind us from coming forward until we’d disembarked ^.
We made the usual small talk with the crew while we waited for the airbridge to swing in – they were going straight back to Hong Kong – and without any dramatic incidents we were allowed off the plane and up the fixed link ramp into the terminal building.
Our health declarations were collected by a lady all on her own in a little box and after a sweep through a medical checkpoint we arrived at the deserted immigration area. There were a lot of counters open, although at first glance there appeared to be less because half of them happened to be obscured by a large pillar. Processing was slower than at Beijing last year, but not unduly so – clearing passport control at Pudong took no longer than say, Australia, when arriving on an overseas passport.
The baggage claim area is one escalator ride down – surprisingly in full view from public areas – which was equally deserted bar one reclaim. There was a bit of a wait for luggage, which was disappointing since so far the facilities had seemed to meld together rather nicely, including the plentiful supply of well-running trolleys. As expected, the priority tags did their job and our bags were among the first off.
Customs was a peremptory pass through a screening area where it seemed they were only interested in detaining anyone looking shifty, suspicious or wearing T-shirts “I am a smuggler”. Time from plane to exit: twenty-one minutes, well short of the best time, but very respectable nonetheless.
Dragon in Air – the Last Word
Both with the flight to Shanghai and the return flight to Hong Kong from Beijing I was quite happy with the Dragonair First Class product. It certainly beats the standard Business Class product Cathay offers on its A330 Beijing service. What could be improved is the choice of inflight entertainment, but in terms of service, seating and ambiance – Dragonair score top marks for its attempt at making a stab at a consistent regional First Class service.
Dragonair’s seat control panel is located on the centre armrest, above the (non-detachable) PTV controls. Aside from the usual individual seat up/back, legrest up/back, lumbar up/down controls are the package buttons becoming more common nowadays – one to recline the seat fully into its sleeping position and one to bring it back up for takeoff and landing.
I tried it out on 1G first, hitting the full recline button. The seat moves pretty much like every other lie-flat seat, sliding forward and bringing the legrest up. Like CX’s NBC seat, the KA seat ‘clicked’ into a preset position – although it can recline further one has to keep the full recline button pressed down for five or so seconds before it moves further. I assumed that this was, like on CX’s seat, the recommended Z position for sleeping, although it seemed at a much steeper and uncomfortable angle than on Cathay.
At its full reclined position the Dragonair seat is at an incline of 11 degrees, which is fairly slidey. This was made all the more worse by the fact that in row 1, there is no ‘footstop’ (formed by the back of row 1’s cocoons in row 2) and the bulkhead didn’t do quite the same job because of the angle difference. Verdict: as with Cathay’s lie-flat seat, not comfortable in the fully reclined position, acceptable for catnaps in the Z position and best in the upright and slightly reclined positions (although the cushioning was not as soft as on CX). One strange thing though – the velcroed headrests seemed particularly susceptible to the reclining process, often catching on something and tearing off when the seat was brought back up.
The bathrooms were stocked with the usual potions – soap, bottles of moisturiser and air mist and a flower sprig in the vase fixed to the mirror. A real flower sprig, unlike Cathay who’ve gone for the fake ones post-SARS. However, I would gladly swap the flower for proper hot towels, instead of the antiseptic hand towels the crew kept passing out.
About twenty minutes before landing, the flight attendant came by to ask whether we’d like a final drink and to pass out yet more antiseptic hand towels. By this time I’d moved to my third seat – 1K, so I could have a window seat for landing. Right now HYB was swooping over snow-capped mountain ranges; below us a smaller plane moving diagonally towards our right.
The crew returned our winter coats and after a brief adventure where it appeared that one had been misplaced, we all got our belongings back and HYB was roaring down the runway at Pudong. The first glimpse of the terminal building was very promising: a wide expanse of glass and European widebodies, although it seemed the designers went for long rather than accessibility. Fortunately for us, our assigned gate was 18, which was fairly close to the immigration counters. I pity those who docked at 25, right at the end.
Double airbridges were in play, always a good indicator of civilisation
and the Dragonair flight attendants positively scooted down the aisles the second we rolled to a stop, to shut the curtains and stop the four or five Business Class passengers behind us from coming forward until we’d disembarked ^.We made the usual small talk with the crew while we waited for the airbridge to swing in – they were going straight back to Hong Kong – and without any dramatic incidents we were allowed off the plane and up the fixed link ramp into the terminal building.
Our health declarations were collected by a lady all on her own in a little box and after a sweep through a medical checkpoint we arrived at the deserted immigration area. There were a lot of counters open, although at first glance there appeared to be less because half of them happened to be obscured by a large pillar. Processing was slower than at Beijing last year, but not unduly so – clearing passport control at Pudong took no longer than say, Australia, when arriving on an overseas passport.
The baggage claim area is one escalator ride down – surprisingly in full view from public areas – which was equally deserted bar one reclaim. There was a bit of a wait for luggage, which was disappointing since so far the facilities had seemed to meld together rather nicely, including the plentiful supply of well-running trolleys. As expected, the priority tags did their job and our bags were among the first off.
Customs was a peremptory pass through a screening area where it seemed they were only interested in detaining anyone looking shifty, suspicious or wearing T-shirts “I am a smuggler”. Time from plane to exit: twenty-one minutes, well short of the best time, but very respectable nonetheless.
Dragon in Air – the Last Word
Both with the flight to Shanghai and the return flight to Hong Kong from Beijing I was quite happy with the Dragonair First Class product. It certainly beats the standard Business Class product Cathay offers on its A330 Beijing service. What could be improved is the choice of inflight entertainment, but in terms of service, seating and ambiance – Dragonair score top marks for its attempt at making a stab at a consistent regional First Class service.
Jan 25, 2005, 9:58 pm
#4
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 1,011
Shanghai Nights
We had three of them, and in that time I:
1) Managed not to lose M and K
2) Rode the Maglev train (438 kmh: can’t get that on the Airport Express…)
3) Ate (mmmmmmmm)
4) Visited the famed Shanghai museum at companion’s suggestion (read ‘insistence’) (M and K got so bored they went outside to explore People’s Square; suffice it to say they had the right idea)
5) Visited the Bund
6) Did the touristy thing and visited the Oriental Pearl TV Tower (advice: don’t bother)
7) Ate some more
8) Discovered New Zealand yoghurt on offer at the hotel breakfast buffet (haven’t found that anywhere else outside NZ
)
9) Rode on the Shanghai subway (warning: avoid rush hour – when the doors beep to say they’re closing, they are pretty intent on closing – as one poor guy who tried to slip on board at the last second discovered, ‘sensors’ don’t appear to have made the Chinese mass transit vocabulary yet)
10) Decided that the saying ‘once is enough’ applies well to Shanghai
Flight: CA1502
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200, B-2069
Departure time: 1140
Departure gate: 16
Sector: SHA PEK
The hotel on their initiative offered to confirm our flight bookings for us. This internal sector would be leaving from Shanghai’s old airport, Hongqiao – closer to the city but the interior was certainly a bit dated. There was hold security screening before check-in, and the check method was by a security guard slapping a sticker onto the bag (not across the zip, where it might be more useful )
For some bizarre reason, Air China at Hongqiao is handled by China Eastern. And that doesn’t mean merely that check-in was staffed by China Eastern agents. It means that the signs above the counters displayed the China Eastern logo (along with a line wedged in at the bottom saying “Common check-in for MU/CA/someone else’s code”) and our boarding passes and luggage tags were printed on China Eastern stock.
We followed the plentiful signs to security (if there is one thing China cannot be faulted on, is its quantity of signage – the grammar is a different story
) Prior to the actual security screening is another lady in a box whose job it is to match boarding pass with identification document and stamp boarding pass and stub, using an inkpad that appeared to be rapidly running dry, given the number of times she had to hit our boarding passes with the stamp before she was satisfied.
Meanwhile, almost everyone passing through the metal detector was being flagged for a wanding – we suspected that the tolerance threshold is set awfully low so even the most minor scrap of metal will set it off. Three of our four did – causes range from belt buckles to shiny buttons, and we were given the wanding treatment by a Chinese security officer suddenly overcome by a fit of the hiccups, to her utmost embarrassment.
Because Hongqiao have divided up their security checkpoints by allocating them to a couple of gates (even though it’s free passage along the entire terminal after clearing them) we were directly opposite the aircraft at gate 14 once we passed through. Our flight was scheduled for departure from gate 16, right at the end of the terminal building (incidentally, its design reminded me of Penang – one long stretch of corridor). Passing gate 15, we saw a First and Business Class lounge marked ‘15’ – was this us? Checking our red lounge invitations, the answer appeared to be no: they all had a scribbled 16 on them. That caused a few raised eyebrows and exchanging of funny looks – was this the China way, assigning a premium lounge to each gate?
Answer: yes. Just before reaching gate 16, a doorway that looked to all the world a broom closet were it not for the brass plaque next to it marked “First Class Lounge 16” materialised. We stepped in rather tentatively – we still weren’t sure whether we were actually in the right place – and a China Eastern lady, looking rather stern, ducked out from behind the small desk next to the table, holding a cleaning rag. I don’t know what it was – maybe a combination of the individual lounges and the cleaning rag – but that remains to this day the most surreal sight of that holiday.
Anyway, we handed over our lounge invitations which seemed to pass muster. The lounge was pretty much one big square with the usual lounge armchair seating scattered around small tables. The place, apart from Duty Lady, was completely empty. On one side of the room, a small snack bar adjacent to a large Coke fridge sat looking rather desolate. A television monitor was showing flight information (although somehow during the course of our one hour plus stay – we arrived mega-early, having budgeted for rush hour traffic that never materialised – it changed to a Chinese soap opera). Rounding off the lounge amenities was a private bathroom in the last corner, which wasn’t anything special but it was clean and well stocked with liquid soap and paper towels.
We bagged the corner furthest away from the entrance, the toilet, and Duty Lady’s desk, moving a few of the chairs around and throwing our coats over them. M and K, apparently not liking the sound of sitting still for over an hour, went for a wander outside, returning ten minutes later to tell us that (1) there was no plane at gate 16; (2) that the lounge at gate 15 looked nicer; (3) Hongqiao was rather grotty but (4) that even Hongqiao had arrivals-departures separation, unlike Auckland (as you can infer, I get along quite well with M and K). I took their word on point (1); chose not to comment on point (2); agreed with point (3) but noted that Hongqiao had been built decades earlier and authorities were probably more concerned with promoting Pudong; and made some sort of derisive comment in response to (4) which was wholly uncomplimentary towards said airport without such separation.
The lounge had a good supply of both English and Chinese literature available - English publications including the China Daily and an Airport magazine. The English transliterations in the Airport magazine was somewhat distorted, but the China Daily has enough to keep one distracted for twenty minutes, especially if one reads the “Around China” section, which features mostly brief anecdotes about what Chinese citizens get up to. From the week I spent reading it, the stories on that particular page usually consist of record-breaking attempts and recounts of amorous encounters that go awry.
Either M or K would pop out of the lounge every so often to see if anything had arrived into gate 16 yet, with continued shakes of the head. As departure time neared, more people began arriving into the lounge, and the Duty Lady frequently had to break off from her cleaning tasks (she seemed rather obsessed with wiping every speck of dust from the food and beverage areas, which though admirable seemed slightly unrealistic).
While I was reasonably confident we would be fed on the plane on an 11.40 departure, I wasn’t reasonably confident on the standard of the meal service, so I had a look at the snackbar and picked up a couple of packets of crackers and a bottle of spring water. Also on offer were two categories of foodstuffs (“salted” and “sweet”), consisting mainly of shrink-wrapped sandwiches and cakes, which looked decidedly unappetising. The best point was the beverage fridge, which was stocked with a wide variety of water, juices and soft drinks.
1) Managed not to lose M and K
2) Rode the Maglev train (438 kmh: can’t get that on the Airport Express…)
3) Ate (mmmmmmmm)
4) Visited the famed Shanghai museum at companion’s suggestion (read ‘insistence’) (M and K got so bored they went outside to explore People’s Square; suffice it to say they had the right idea)
5) Visited the Bund
6) Did the touristy thing and visited the Oriental Pearl TV Tower (advice: don’t bother)
7) Ate some more
8) Discovered New Zealand yoghurt on offer at the hotel breakfast buffet (haven’t found that anywhere else outside NZ
)9) Rode on the Shanghai subway (warning: avoid rush hour – when the doors beep to say they’re closing, they are pretty intent on closing – as one poor guy who tried to slip on board at the last second discovered, ‘sensors’ don’t appear to have made the Chinese mass transit vocabulary yet)
10) Decided that the saying ‘once is enough’ applies well to Shanghai
Flight: CA1502
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200, B-2069
Departure time: 1140
Departure gate: 16
Sector: SHA PEK
The hotel on their initiative offered to confirm our flight bookings for us. This internal sector would be leaving from Shanghai’s old airport, Hongqiao – closer to the city but the interior was certainly a bit dated. There was hold security screening before check-in, and the check method was by a security guard slapping a sticker onto the bag (not across the zip, where it might be more useful
)For some bizarre reason, Air China at Hongqiao is handled by China Eastern. And that doesn’t mean merely that check-in was staffed by China Eastern agents. It means that the signs above the counters displayed the China Eastern logo (along with a line wedged in at the bottom saying “Common check-in for MU/CA/someone else’s code”) and our boarding passes and luggage tags were printed on China Eastern stock.
We followed the plentiful signs to security (if there is one thing China cannot be faulted on, is its quantity of signage – the grammar is a different story
) Prior to the actual security screening is another lady in a box whose job it is to match boarding pass with identification document and stamp boarding pass and stub, using an inkpad that appeared to be rapidly running dry, given the number of times she had to hit our boarding passes with the stamp before she was satisfied.Meanwhile, almost everyone passing through the metal detector was being flagged for a wanding – we suspected that the tolerance threshold is set awfully low so even the most minor scrap of metal will set it off. Three of our four did – causes range from belt buckles to shiny buttons, and we were given the wanding treatment by a Chinese security officer suddenly overcome by a fit of the hiccups, to her utmost embarrassment.
Because Hongqiao have divided up their security checkpoints by allocating them to a couple of gates (even though it’s free passage along the entire terminal after clearing them) we were directly opposite the aircraft at gate 14 once we passed through. Our flight was scheduled for departure from gate 16, right at the end of the terminal building (incidentally, its design reminded me of Penang – one long stretch of corridor). Passing gate 15, we saw a First and Business Class lounge marked ‘15’ – was this us? Checking our red lounge invitations, the answer appeared to be no: they all had a scribbled 16 on them. That caused a few raised eyebrows and exchanging of funny looks – was this the China way, assigning a premium lounge to each gate?
Answer: yes. Just before reaching gate 16, a doorway that looked to all the world a broom closet were it not for the brass plaque next to it marked “First Class Lounge 16” materialised. We stepped in rather tentatively – we still weren’t sure whether we were actually in the right place – and a China Eastern lady, looking rather stern, ducked out from behind the small desk next to the table, holding a cleaning rag. I don’t know what it was – maybe a combination of the individual lounges and the cleaning rag – but that remains to this day the most surreal sight of that holiday.
Anyway, we handed over our lounge invitations which seemed to pass muster. The lounge was pretty much one big square with the usual lounge armchair seating scattered around small tables. The place, apart from Duty Lady, was completely empty. On one side of the room, a small snack bar adjacent to a large Coke fridge sat looking rather desolate. A television monitor was showing flight information (although somehow during the course of our one hour plus stay – we arrived mega-early, having budgeted for rush hour traffic that never materialised – it changed to a Chinese soap opera). Rounding off the lounge amenities was a private bathroom in the last corner, which wasn’t anything special but it was clean and well stocked with liquid soap and paper towels.
We bagged the corner furthest away from the entrance, the toilet, and Duty Lady’s desk, moving a few of the chairs around and throwing our coats over them. M and K, apparently not liking the sound of sitting still for over an hour, went for a wander outside, returning ten minutes later to tell us that (1) there was no plane at gate 16; (2) that the lounge at gate 15 looked nicer; (3) Hongqiao was rather grotty but (4) that even Hongqiao had arrivals-departures separation, unlike Auckland (as you can infer, I get along quite well with M and K). I took their word on point (1); chose not to comment on point (2); agreed with point (3) but noted that Hongqiao had been built decades earlier and authorities were probably more concerned with promoting Pudong; and made some sort of derisive comment in response to (4) which was wholly uncomplimentary towards said airport without such separation.
The lounge had a good supply of both English and Chinese literature available - English publications including the China Daily and an Airport magazine. The English transliterations in the Airport magazine was somewhat distorted, but the China Daily has enough to keep one distracted for twenty minutes, especially if one reads the “Around China” section, which features mostly brief anecdotes about what Chinese citizens get up to. From the week I spent reading it, the stories on that particular page usually consist of record-breaking attempts and recounts of amorous encounters that go awry.
Either M or K would pop out of the lounge every so often to see if anything had arrived into gate 16 yet, with continued shakes of the head. As departure time neared, more people began arriving into the lounge, and the Duty Lady frequently had to break off from her cleaning tasks (she seemed rather obsessed with wiping every speck of dust from the food and beverage areas, which though admirable seemed slightly unrealistic).
While I was reasonably confident we would be fed on the plane on an 11.40 departure, I wasn’t reasonably confident on the standard of the meal service, so I had a look at the snackbar and picked up a couple of packets of crackers and a bottle of spring water. Also on offer were two categories of foodstuffs (“salted” and “sweet”), consisting mainly of shrink-wrapped sandwiches and cakes, which looked decidedly unappetising. The best point was the beverage fridge, which was stocked with a wide variety of water, juices and soft drinks.
Last edited by B-HXB; Feb 9, 2005 at 1:37 am Reason: Formatting
Jan 25, 2005, 9:59 pm
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 1,011
Bump to Beijing
So much for an on-time departure, I was beginning to think, as K returned with the latest news that as of twenty past eleven there was still no aircraft on stand at 16, although there was an Air China 777 at 15 (our itineraries were showing this flight as being operated by a 747-400). However, coinciding with this update came a boarding announcement from gate 16 that CA1502 was boarding. Quite interested to know how we could possibly be boarding an aircraft that wasn’t there – and wondering whether we’d be doing a ZRH and getting on to buses at an airbridged gate – we gathered up our stuff and followed everyone else out of the lounge, right into a long queue that snaked through the waiting area.
The other passengers really believed in priority boarding – they just marched right through the queue up to the person scanning boarding passes (Hongqiao issues the barcode ones in lieu of the usual magnetic-stripped ones), presented said pass with red First Class sticker square on it and walked right along. We merely followed them. It was easier than thinking for ourselves.
What of the mystery aircraft? As always, there was a simple, albeit rather strange, solution to the puzzle. It turned out that for some reason known only to Chinese airport authorities, our aircraft had decided it didn’t like gate 16 and had come on stand on to 15. Rather than change the gate number and board us through 15, the decision was made to keep the original gate number, boarding everyone at 16, and then walk everyone back down the glassed-in arrivals passage to the entrance to aerobridge 15. Perfect sense. As was the fact that the person at the entrance of gate 16 only scanned boarding passes, but the person on guard at the entrance to aerobridge 15, was the one responsible for ripping off the stub.
China works in mysterious ways.
Hongqiao gates only have one airbridge fitted and on the 777 it attached onto 1L. The Chief Purser was at the door, smiling and indicating to passengers where their seats were. The Air China uniform is much more attractive than their livery, consisting of a red skirt for the ladies and a multicoloured scarf (reminiscent somewhat of the Air New Zealand scarf). The First Class cabin is configured two rows of 2-2-2 and much to my relief, there had been a décor and seating change between the time CA outfitted its A340-300s and its B777-200 series. Gone were the horrid brown stripes and hard boxy seats that adorned the A340-300s; in its place, normal coloured bulkheads and big comfortable cradle seats done in a soft purple with CA’s ‘VIP’ logo weaved through the fabric. Much more soothing and pleasant than the older cabins. ^
In the seat pocket was Air China’s inflight magazine, what looked like some sort of internal aviation newsletter (all in Chinese, unfortunately), headphones, sick bag, safety card and a pair of blue slippers wrapped in plastic. Needless to say, we were all happiest with that last item. The crew came by with a tray of water and juice.
The First Class cabin ended up 11 seats filled out of 12, plus one (wailing) infant. Business Class behind us didn’t look that full at all. Doors were closed more or less on schedule, by which time another company 777-200 had docked into gate 16. B-2069 was pushed out onto the tarmac, with the nosegear camera on the overhead screen in front of 1DG, and the Chief Purser called our attention to the safety video in Mandarin and a bit muddled but passable English.
The safety video’s soundtrack was entirely in Mandarin, although there were English subtitles rolling along the bottom, transliterated, it would seem, extremely literally. However, the funniest moment had to be when the flight hostess was narrating and demonstrating the lifejacket procedures, using a young boy who judging by the expression on his face had no idea what was happening. First she rammed a lifejacket over his head, then gripped his shoulders and yanked him ninety degrees to face the exit. After a stream of Mandarin she wheeled him back round to face the camera, before slapping an oxygen mask over his face. At which point the camera focused in on the flight hostess, leaving us to imagine what happened to the poor boy. I hope he got some nice souvenirs for his trouble.
After the safety video concluded we sat where we were for ten minutes or so, during which time the crew came round and offered to open our slippers for us. The Chief Purser did another welcome announcement, introducing the Captain (his name was either Blah, Blegh or <indecipherable mumble>). The Captain, meanwhile, seemed solely concerned with flying the plane – we didn’t hear or see a peep of him for the entire flight, which led M to ponder whether there was in fact a crew up front at all or whether China had beaten the US into putting into place a remote piloting system.
The takeoff run was surprisingly short and we banked left almost immediately after leaving the ground, climbing to an altitude of 27500 feet. One of the flight attendants had come round during the wait on the ground to ask if we’d like anything after takeoff (me: ‘to drink?’ her: ‘no, to eat’). They had a choice of pork or fish, which the FA managed to communicate in reasonably good English. I went for the fish, companion for the pork.
Each First Class seat is equipped with a PTV which swings out from under the centre armrests, and there is a detachable PTV controller (no phone on the back). There is a navigational menu but no sort of On Demand system (not that one needed it for such a short flight, but I believe the 777s do international routes as well, e.g. to Sydney). However, the audio channels had quite a patchy reception – the sound kept cutting itself out and resuming. After a while that became extremely irritating so I switched the PTV to Flight Path and left it there.
The seat itself was quite comfortable to sit in, and the legrest was the best feature – it extended out quite a way and the footrest was situated far enough away so as to actually be useful. The controls on the armrest looked like the seat was electronically controlled, although pressing the recline button caused the seatback to fly backwards without any hint of a motor sound. In terms of both comfort, design and aesthetic appearance, the seat was certainly far better than the ones on the A340s Cathay leased in the late-late 1990s.
Prior to starting the food preparation, the flight attendant came round offering blankets. I didn’t really need one, but they looked lovely – more a light duvet than a blanket, with a lemony yellow covering and absolutely no static – so I took one to try out anyway. Like on Dragonair, the cabin was kept rather warm so I ditched the blanket after a while, with a silent apology to the nice flight attendant who had unwrapped it from the plastic and laid it over my knees, an act she repeated for all the other passengers.
A drinks trolley run heralded the beginning of the lunch service, delivered with a packet of salted nuts. After that trays were delivered straight out from the galley onto our tablecloth laid tray tables. It was slightly reminiscent of an Economy Class tray in that a lot of the things were already pre-plated (dish of salad, dish of fruit, appetiser, cutlery). The appetiser was a smoked salmon – prawn dish which fell short of other seafood appetisers on other airlines.
The mains were also brought out straight from the galley. The flight attendant got slightly mixed up, giving me the pork and companion the fish – we managed to get through that it was the other way round and she used her tongs to swap the casserole plates for us. Behind us, K ended up with the fish despite requesting the pork, but didn’t bother asking them to change it.
Both dishes came with a side of rice and vegetables. The fish was crumbed fish nuggets rather than an actual slice of fish; the pork was similarly chopped up into bite-sized pieces. Both were drowned in some sort of thick brown sauce that tasted slightly sweet. Having speared a piece of pork to try, I have to say that the pork was probably the better option. In terms of the fish meal, it was acceptable – if one pretended that it wasn’t fish.
The fruit dish consisted of two slices of watermelon and a slice of honeydew melon, and the crew also came round to pass out a plate of white chocolates. The lunch service was wrapped up approximately fifty minutes out of Beijing (the Flight Path display was not exactly the most accurate in counting down). Interestingly, the seat belt sign had not come off once – whether this was because our cruising altitude happened to be full of bumps and lumps such that it felt we were on an extended roller coaster ride or whether they haven’t figured out how to switch the sign off from their ground control station is yet to be figured out.
An inevitable, perhaps unfortunate, consequence of leaving the sign on for an extended period of time is that people begin to ignore it after a while (reference: “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”) although the crew were quite diligent in making announcements asking people to sit down if we were hitting particularly rough patches of turbulence. Meanwhile, after the remnants of lunch were cleared, the flight attendants disappeared into the galley for the rest of the flight to eat their own lunch, although I wouldn’t take this to mean that they were neglecting their jobs – they were certainly not too busy chatting to give me a smile and point me in the right direction of the toilets when I walked past. ^
Nothing special to report on the toilets – there were two of them, in the corridor behind the cockpit; clean and tidy, had soap and tissue paper stocked and really, that is all one asks of an airplane toilet.
We were still bumping horrendously as we continued our path up to Beijing and I remember thinking at the time that this was possibly the worst flight, turbulence-wise, that I had ever been on and wishing it to end. Mercifully the Chief Purser announced our descent into overcast Beijing a few minutes later, and not so long after that we were gliding down into Beijing Capital Airport. I do like watching the ‘pilot’s view’ approach on the 777 camera.
An Air China A340-300 was just backing out of our assigned gate when we arrived, but without so much as a pause we just hurtled right in, our left wingtip passing rather close to the A340’s nose for comfort, I thought. Meanwhile, Mr 1C had decided that ‘please stay seated until the aircraft stops’ rule didn’t apply to him, and he was standing up and throwing things into this gigantic carry bag, occasionally doing the odd stretching exercise. I thought it would serve him right if the aircraft halted suddenly such that it would slam him against the forward bulkhead or at least pitch him to the floor (I have quite little tolerance for people who disobey blatant safety instructions and am still teased for saying to companion once to that some idiot on a Qantas flight who had his mobile phone on and was talking loudly into it despite an announcement literally seconds before that mobile phones were to be kept off until inside the terminal building should be thrown into jail and left to rot).
Gate 24 had double airbridges and after saying our goodbyes to the crew and trying to put as much distance between us and the person in 2A as far as possible (he had been blowing his nose for the last ten minutes and I pity the poor cleaner who had the misfortune to clean up his seat pocket) we were out of the aircraft and into the modern terminal complex. Beijing Capital enforces split departures and arrivals, although in somewhat a strange design – arrivals exit into the terminal and are separated by a waist-high glass screen from departures. Arrivals then go up an escalator (which are sensor-activated; neat) to a sterile arrivals mezzanine floor, before dropping down an escalator two floors into the baggage hall.
Unfortunately, what promised to be a pretty decent PTE time (mainly due to the lack of passport control and a close gate) was again let down by the slow delivery of our bags, but 15 minutes was all it took to end our Air China experience.
How did Air China stack up?
Well, it has quite a long way to go before it gets to the likes of Cathay or Dragonair. The seats are a bit dated for international First Class, and the catering could certainly be improved. What is perhaps most worrying is the safety culture – the Chief Purser waited almost until the last minute before asking the lady in 1D to bring her seat back upright for landing and didn’t even bother for Mrs 1A. Plus, there were no efforts to ask passengers to stow their bags in the overhead lockers, so they were all lying loose in the cabin during takeoff and landing. From a service perspective, the crew certainly try to be very customer-orientated. Hopefully the secondment programme Air China have with Cathay will aim to improve the safety aspects. But all in all, it certainly wasn’t a flight I’d be slagging off at.
The other passengers really believed in priority boarding – they just marched right through the queue up to the person scanning boarding passes (Hongqiao issues the barcode ones in lieu of the usual magnetic-stripped ones), presented said pass with red First Class sticker square on it and walked right along. We merely followed them. It was easier than thinking for ourselves.
What of the mystery aircraft? As always, there was a simple, albeit rather strange, solution to the puzzle. It turned out that for some reason known only to Chinese airport authorities, our aircraft had decided it didn’t like gate 16 and had come on stand on to 15. Rather than change the gate number and board us through 15, the decision was made to keep the original gate number, boarding everyone at 16, and then walk everyone back down the glassed-in arrivals passage to the entrance to aerobridge 15. Perfect sense.
As was the fact that the person at the entrance of gate 16 only scanned boarding passes, but the person on guard at the entrance to aerobridge 15, was the one responsible for ripping off the stub.China works in mysterious ways.
Hongqiao gates only have one airbridge fitted and on the 777 it attached onto 1L. The Chief Purser was at the door, smiling and indicating to passengers where their seats were. The Air China uniform is much more attractive than their livery, consisting of a red skirt for the ladies and a multicoloured scarf (reminiscent somewhat of the Air New Zealand scarf). The First Class cabin is configured two rows of 2-2-2 and much to my relief, there had been a décor and seating change between the time CA outfitted its A340-300s and its B777-200 series. Gone were the horrid brown stripes and hard boxy seats that adorned the A340-300s; in its place, normal coloured bulkheads and big comfortable cradle seats done in a soft purple with CA’s ‘VIP’ logo weaved through the fabric. Much more soothing and pleasant than the older cabins. ^
In the seat pocket was Air China’s inflight magazine, what looked like some sort of internal aviation newsletter (all in Chinese, unfortunately), headphones, sick bag, safety card and a pair of blue slippers wrapped in plastic. Needless to say, we were all happiest with that last item.
The crew came by with a tray of water and juice.The First Class cabin ended up 11 seats filled out of 12, plus one (wailing) infant. Business Class behind us didn’t look that full at all. Doors were closed more or less on schedule, by which time another company 777-200 had docked into gate 16. B-2069 was pushed out onto the tarmac, with the nosegear camera on the overhead screen in front of 1DG, and the Chief Purser called our attention to the safety video in Mandarin and a bit muddled but passable English.
The safety video’s soundtrack was entirely in Mandarin, although there were English subtitles rolling along the bottom, transliterated, it would seem, extremely literally. However, the funniest moment had to be when the flight hostess was narrating and demonstrating the lifejacket procedures, using a young boy who judging by the expression on his face had no idea what was happening. First she rammed a lifejacket over his head, then gripped his shoulders and yanked him ninety degrees to face the exit. After a stream of Mandarin she wheeled him back round to face the camera, before slapping an oxygen mask over his face. At which point the camera focused in on the flight hostess, leaving us to imagine what happened to the poor boy. I hope he got some nice souvenirs for his trouble.
After the safety video concluded we sat where we were for ten minutes or so, during which time the crew came round and offered to open our slippers for us. The Chief Purser did another welcome announcement, introducing the Captain (his name was either Blah, Blegh or <indecipherable mumble>). The Captain, meanwhile, seemed solely concerned with flying the plane – we didn’t hear or see a peep of him for the entire flight, which led M to ponder whether there was in fact a crew up front at all or whether China had beaten the US into putting into place a remote piloting system.
The takeoff run was surprisingly short and we banked left almost immediately after leaving the ground, climbing to an altitude of 27500 feet. One of the flight attendants had come round during the wait on the ground to ask if we’d like anything after takeoff (me: ‘to drink?’ her: ‘no, to eat’). They had a choice of pork or fish, which the FA managed to communicate in reasonably good English. I went for the fish, companion for the pork.
Each First Class seat is equipped with a PTV which swings out from under the centre armrests, and there is a detachable PTV controller (no phone on the back). There is a navigational menu but no sort of On Demand system (not that one needed it for such a short flight, but I believe the 777s do international routes as well, e.g. to Sydney). However, the audio channels had quite a patchy reception – the sound kept cutting itself out and resuming. After a while that became extremely irritating so I switched the PTV to Flight Path and left it there.
The seat itself was quite comfortable to sit in, and the legrest was the best feature – it extended out quite a way and the footrest was situated far enough away so as to actually be useful. The controls on the armrest looked like the seat was electronically controlled, although pressing the recline button caused the seatback to fly backwards without any hint of a motor sound. In terms of both comfort, design and aesthetic appearance, the seat was certainly far better than the ones on the A340s Cathay leased in the late-late 1990s.
Prior to starting the food preparation, the flight attendant came round offering blankets. I didn’t really need one, but they looked lovely – more a light duvet than a blanket, with a lemony yellow covering and absolutely no static – so I took one to try out anyway. Like on Dragonair, the cabin was kept rather warm so I ditched the blanket after a while, with a silent apology to the nice flight attendant who had unwrapped it from the plastic and laid it over my knees, an act she repeated for all the other passengers.
A drinks trolley run heralded the beginning of the lunch service, delivered with a packet of salted nuts. After that trays were delivered straight out from the galley onto our tablecloth laid tray tables. It was slightly reminiscent of an Economy Class tray in that a lot of the things were already pre-plated (dish of salad, dish of fruit, appetiser, cutlery). The appetiser was a smoked salmon – prawn dish which fell short of other seafood appetisers on other airlines.
The mains were also brought out straight from the galley. The flight attendant got slightly mixed up, giving me the pork and companion the fish – we managed to get through that it was the other way round and she used her tongs to swap the casserole plates for us. Behind us, K ended up with the fish despite requesting the pork, but didn’t bother asking them to change it.
Both dishes came with a side of rice and vegetables. The fish was crumbed fish nuggets rather than an actual slice of fish; the pork was similarly chopped up into bite-sized pieces. Both were drowned in some sort of thick brown sauce that tasted slightly sweet. Having speared a piece of pork to try, I have to say that the pork was probably the better option. In terms of the fish meal, it was acceptable – if one pretended that it wasn’t fish.
The fruit dish consisted of two slices of watermelon and a slice of honeydew melon, and the crew also came round to pass out a plate of white chocolates. The lunch service was wrapped up approximately fifty minutes out of Beijing (the Flight Path display was not exactly the most accurate in counting down). Interestingly, the seat belt sign had not come off once – whether this was because our cruising altitude happened to be full of bumps and lumps such that it felt we were on an extended roller coaster ride or whether they haven’t figured out how to switch the sign off from their ground control station is yet to be figured out.
An inevitable, perhaps unfortunate, consequence of leaving the sign on for an extended period of time is that people begin to ignore it after a while (reference: “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”) although the crew were quite diligent in making announcements asking people to sit down if we were hitting particularly rough patches of turbulence. Meanwhile, after the remnants of lunch were cleared, the flight attendants disappeared into the galley for the rest of the flight to eat their own lunch, although I wouldn’t take this to mean that they were neglecting their jobs – they were certainly not too busy chatting to give me a smile and point me in the right direction of the toilets when I walked past. ^
Nothing special to report on the toilets – there were two of them, in the corridor behind the cockpit; clean and tidy, had soap and tissue paper stocked and really, that is all one asks of an airplane toilet.
We were still bumping horrendously as we continued our path up to Beijing and I remember thinking at the time that this was possibly the worst flight, turbulence-wise, that I had ever been on and wishing it to end. Mercifully the Chief Purser announced our descent into overcast Beijing a few minutes later, and not so long after that we were gliding down into Beijing Capital Airport. I do like watching the ‘pilot’s view’ approach on the 777 camera.
An Air China A340-300 was just backing out of our assigned gate when we arrived, but without so much as a pause we just hurtled right in, our left wingtip passing rather close to the A340’s nose for comfort, I thought. Meanwhile, Mr 1C had decided that ‘please stay seated until the aircraft stops’ rule didn’t apply to him, and he was standing up and throwing things into this gigantic carry bag, occasionally doing the odd stretching exercise. I thought it would serve him right if the aircraft halted suddenly such that it would slam him against the forward bulkhead or at least pitch him to the floor (I have quite little tolerance for people who disobey blatant safety instructions and am still teased for saying to companion once to that some idiot on a Qantas flight who had his mobile phone on and was talking loudly into it despite an announcement literally seconds before that mobile phones were to be kept off until inside the terminal building should be thrown into jail and left to rot).
Gate 24 had double airbridges and after saying our goodbyes to the crew and trying to put as much distance between us and the person in 2A as far as possible (he had been blowing his nose for the last ten minutes and I pity the poor cleaner who had the misfortune to clean up his seat pocket) we were out of the aircraft and into the modern terminal complex. Beijing Capital enforces split departures and arrivals, although in somewhat a strange design – arrivals exit into the terminal and are separated by a waist-high glass screen from departures. Arrivals then go up an escalator (which are sensor-activated; neat
) to a sterile arrivals mezzanine floor, before dropping down an escalator two floors into the baggage hall.Unfortunately, what promised to be a pretty decent PTE time (mainly due to the lack of passport control and a close gate) was again let down by the slow delivery of our bags, but 15 minutes was all it took to end our Air China experience.
How did Air China stack up?
Well, it has quite a long way to go before it gets to the likes of Cathay or Dragonair. The seats are a bit dated for international First Class, and the catering could certainly be improved. What is perhaps most worrying is the safety culture – the Chief Purser waited almost until the last minute before asking the lady in 1D to bring her seat back upright for landing and didn’t even bother for Mrs 1A. Plus, there were no efforts to ask passengers to stow their bags in the overhead lockers, so they were all lying loose in the cabin during takeoff and landing. From a service perspective, the crew certainly try to be very customer-orientated. Hopefully the secondment programme Air China have with Cathay will aim to improve the safety aspects. But all in all, it certainly wasn’t a flight I’d be slagging off at.
Last edited by B-HXB; Jan 26, 2005 at 2:19 am Reason: Formatting
Jan 25, 2005, 10:39 pm
#6
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Posts: 12,148
What a great Trip Report! Indeed, when it comes to a detailed description of the flight, along with a breakdown of the service and the final summation of it all, you set a standard for all to aspire to. :-: :-: :-:
Good to see you back at Trip Reports again, B-HXB.
Good to see you back at Trip Reports again, B-HXB.
Jan 26, 2005, 5:23 am
#7
Moderator: GLBT travelers, India-based Airlines and India; FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Asia
Programs: Yes!
Posts: 15,512
Outstanding Trip Report B-HXB ^ ^
I'm planning to do the exact reverse of your itinerary soon.
PEK-PVG on Air China and then PVG-HKG on DragonAir in F.
I'm planning to do the exact reverse of your itinerary soon.
PEK-PVG on Air China and then PVG-HKG on DragonAir in F.
Jan 26, 2005, 6:31 am
#8
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: FRA
Posts: 2,175
a very good report!
i did the KA F flight HKG-PVG and back two weeks ago and was too lazy to write a report
excellent service, although i did not really like the HKG lounge (boring) and the food. Both might be related to the fact that I do not like Asian food at all and the western food option tasted the same like the Asian option.
food beside, i am very amazed what a nice product they offer, for a full fare F price way below what we pay for an intra-european flight with LH in C of the same length. for this, they offer four times the space, IFE and a full menu.
i did the KA F flight HKG-PVG and back two weeks ago and was too lazy to write a report
excellent service, although i did not really like the HKG lounge (boring) and the food. Both might be related to the fact that I do not like Asian food at all and the western food option tasted the same like the Asian option.
food beside, i am very amazed what a nice product they offer, for a full fare F price way below what we pay for an intra-european flight with LH in C of the same length. for this, they offer four times the space, IFE and a full menu.
Jan 26, 2005, 8:51 am
#9
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2001
Location: South Bend, IN
Programs: AA EXP 3 MM; Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Titanium Elite
Posts: 18,562
Than ks so much for writing this report.
I will be going to Beijing and another location in China to be determined in October and was planning on giving Dragonair First a try. My plan woluld be to fly CX up to PEK as the departure time would allow me to spend the morning and early afternoon in Hong Kong and I will need the AA miles and then return on Dragonair. I too noticed a lack of info on Dragonair Firstand your report more htan made up for the deficit. Thanks again!
I will be going to Beijing and another location in China to be determined in October and was planning on giving Dragonair First a try. My plan woluld be to fly CX up to PEK as the departure time would allow me to spend the morning and early afternoon in Hong Kong and I will need the AA miles and then return on Dragonair. I too noticed a lack of info on Dragonair Firstand your report more htan made up for the deficit. Thanks again!
Jan 26, 2005, 9:06 am
#10
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Greater DC
Programs: UA plus
Posts: 12,943
Great Timing...
Thanks for the trip report, I'm going to Shanghai in February with an Air China hop over to Beijing before returning to the States. Thanks for the heads up on what to expect.
Jan 26, 2005, 9:38 am
#11
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: New York
Posts: 7,352
Excellent
Excellent report -- very detailed and I am glad that KA adds a noodle bar to its lounge. Last time I was there, I did not notice it... I guess noodle bars are the new additions to Asian airlines' lounge in the Greater Chinese region.
KA food sounds delicious and I am glad that KA offers a very good regional product. I guess the Chinese routes are the money makers and it will make no sense to offer below average service.
I guess the seats sound a bit awkward, and hopefully when KA finally offers long haul flights to SYD, it will update the cabin once again.
Look forward to the return flight!
Carfield
KA food sounds delicious and I am glad that KA offers a very good regional product. I guess the Chinese routes are the money makers and it will make no sense to offer below average service.
I guess the seats sound a bit awkward, and hopefully when KA finally offers long haul flights to SYD, it will update the cabin once again.
Look forward to the return flight!
Carfield
Jan 27, 2005, 5:13 pm
#13
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 3,904
I took KA a few months ago from HKG to PVG and the PEK to HKG. On the first flight there was only 1 other person in first and from PEK I was the only one.
I am a bit surprised that KA offers a 3 class product on these routes since the duration is not too long.
However I do have to say it was an awesome flight with the privacy and attention offered in their first class.
I am a bit surprised that KA offers a 3 class product on these routes since the duration is not too long.
However I do have to say it was an awesome flight with the privacy and attention offered in their first class.