Cabin Comfort
Friendly FAs in dressy red uniforms welcomed us on board. The new-style cabin is equipped with dark blue slim-line seats...
Picture by Satchmo
Picture by Satchmo
...which are quite comfortable.
Picture by Satchmo
Seat pitch isn't bad either:
Load factor reached about 70 percent. Cabin view:
Picture by Satchmo
The cabin is equipped with fold-out video screens which were used on the ground, but not during the flight later. Apparently the plane is also equipped with an audio system, but headsets weren't available.
"Military Exercises"
At about 17:00, some 30 minutes after boarding, the captain made an announcement. He informed us that our departure would be further delayed -
"due to military exercises". The question is whether the military had already trained all day and mainly contributed to the delays or whether it started exercises despite the already existing delays at Hongqiao – or whether only certain flights were affected. Anyway, the captain couldn't tell us when we would be able to leave the ground. We weren't very optimistic at this point of time - at least there wasn't a connecting flight to catch. I tried to get some more registrations, but due to the fog it wasn't even easy to identify the planes leaving the runway. Parked next to us was China Eastern Airbus A330-300 B-6096:
"MOG - Meal-on-Ground"
Only a few minutes after the captain's announcement FAs distributed wet towels. Surprisingly, the purser then also announced that beverage service would start soon - followed by a hot meal! I had never seen or heard before about such a "MOG - Meal-on-ground".
Now it was very clear we would remain on the ground for a while.
I ordered a beer - hoping to get a Chinese one finally. However, I failed for the third time on the third Chinese carrier in three days. All they had was a Carlsberg - and not even a cold one. The FA asked whether we wanted ice - but who on earth drinks beer with ice?
Ten minutes later the meal arrived, consisting of a snack box and a separate bowl with the main course:
The main course was meat (pork) with mushrooms, accompanied by rice and vegetables. The snack box contained a (sweet) bread roll, a piece of melon and tomatoes, peanuts, banana chips, bamboo shoots and a KitKat bar.
With some fatty pieces of meat it wasn't a culinary delight, but the main course tasted better than on China Eastern. Especially the rice wasn't bad. The bamboo shoots were a bit spicy and tasted a bit strange initially, but they weren't that bad in the end. Unexpectedly, the bread roll contained a sweet filling - probably a kind of chocolate pulp. The banana chips were my favorites. No doubt, it was a very diverse meal.