Taipei to San Francisco on China Airlines B747-400 in business (TPE-SFO CI C)
This is the flight that sees me complete a simple US east coast to west coast routing, albeit a bit longer over a few days and at around 10 times the nonstop distance and including 4 transpac flights.
map
This is even longer than the
7 crazy days when I flew from Newark to San Francisco via the
inaugural world's longest flight.
Of course things have changed since then. I've gotten older, but probably not wiser. US immigration and security has gone downhill, and generally people in authority in US seem to be more paranoid. So I was both excited and a little apprehensive as to how this would go. The SSSS on my boarding pass didn't help my nerves even though I knew it was likely a result of my FFP number not sticking properly to my ticket.
The gate was near the lounge so I left at the appropriate time. Boarding started late and sure enough my boarding pass beeped and I was directed to get my carry-on searched. The set up was not very good. In the confusion of boarding I could probably have slipped by without getting my carry-on checked. Anyway the search was cursory - very definitely only being done because USA tells them to do it, not because of any perceived risk.
Business and first class had mostly boarded by the time I got to my seat. Yes the seat beside me had remained empty, and the load was actually fairly light with under half the premium seats occupied.
We pushed back about 20 minutes late. I wasn't concerned as I had a decent enough connection to my next flight even with a delay in arriving (as long as not a few hours of delay) to cope with immigration & customs delays as well.
With a flight time of just over 11 hours, my plan was to stay up for supper and then sleep for 6 hours. That should see me through to the light and noise for breakfast whilst not oversleeping so I will still be tired enough to sleep some more on the subsequent flight. I don't know why I bothered. The supper meal was inedible and they served me the wrong drink. Parts were badly overcooked while other parts were so undercooked they seemed to be almost raw. I don't know how they managed this in the same meal. Even the side dishes were poor - the salad was limp and tasted funny and the roll was like a rock. This was undoubtedly the worst airline meal I've faced this year. So I quickly gave up and sent my tray back after just a few bites. I did manage to doze off and get about 5 hours sleep before waking. I spent the rest of the flight reading and watching some movies I'd seen several (maybe dozens) of times before.
We landed on time but had a long taxi around the terminal complex to international terminal pier A. On disembarking I was surprised to find the line for US citizens was much longer than for visitors, although of course it was also much faster moving. There was just 2-3 officers for the visitor line so progress was slow. Nonetheless I reached the front in under an hour, which is pretty good for USA (although still poor by global standards). I was relieved to not get the officer who had just spent 15 minutes grilling a couple. Instead I got a couple of questions (more about why I was unable to stay for Halloween than anything else) and I was on my way through customs and up to collect some more boarding passes.