Taipei to Hong Kong on China Airlines B777-300ER in business (TPE-HKG CI C)
Hong Kong to Taipei on China Airlines B777-300ER in business (HKG-TPE CI C)
Given the early arrival I was not expecting the transfer desk to be open, since it was still before 5:30am. It was open so I got the next 2 boarding passes en route to the lounge. By the time I reached the lounge it had also opened and I went to grab a shower. They were all in use already so I had a 45 minute wait. There is no queue system so I just kept an eye on the time I tried again when I thought the showers may be empty, beating the influx of passengers as the lounge got busy.
I expected the flights would not be as late as on the inaugural date since early teething troubles should have been sorted out by now. It wasn't to be. The first flight was 80 minutes late. At least this time we had an announcement in the lounge of a 30 minute delay so I didn't go to the gate ridiculously early but it was still annoying being at the gate quite a distance from the lounge waiting for an indefinite delay. I received an email after departure saying the flight had been retimed
We made up a little time en route. Our gate was well down the pier so I opted to use the west transfer security to save walking all the way to the other end and back again. That was a mistake. The line was very long and took more than 20 minutes to get through. During the turnaround they again lost time so the return flight departed over 90 minutes late. Fortunately I had plenty of time for my next flight.
The crew were great and kept my glass filled. I managed to watch almost 2 movies. The menu had changed from my previous flights.