Originally Posted by
moondog
There's nothing "odd" about it in the slightest. Chinese airlines want to be competitive, wield a considerable amount of 关系, and realize that trapping passengers in airports for 15 hour stretches is not cool.
72 hour TWOV entails a slightly different dynamic because in addition to the airlines, cities themselves crave additional spending from transit passengers.
Thank you very much for the info. This is good news then. I will try to enter the city during the long lay-over. The last time I was there, Shanghai only had 2-3 metro lines, and it seems like there are 16 now. So the city must have changed quite rapidly, especially when it was getting ready for the 2010 expo.
Thank you again!