Originally Posted by
JPDM
Beijing and Shanghai have some of the worst records in the world. Besides weather, the air traffic is controlled by the military and civil aviation is not the priority. A flight on time on this route would be a surprise.
I am sufficiently nerdy to retain data on my trips, and following are my insights wrt Shanghai-Beijing
-train is 6 hours, door-to-door, every time (as long as you don't avail of a 3-digit train)
-plane is 4.5 hours, door-to-door, when the stars are perfectly aligned
-this gives us a 1.5 hour delay cushion, which is pretty much the average during July and August, but during other months 45 minutes is more typical
-I'm cool with 2 hour delays because I've found decent places to hang out in both SHA and PEK
-5+ hour delays are a different story, though; they are hard to predict, but do occur
-@YuropFlyer: you mentioned PVG being inconvenient upthread, and of course this is true, but there is no reason to fly to/from there when Beijing is the endpoint; Hongqiao Station is in the same building as Hongqiao T2
-wrt the business/first/second class topic that often pops up in threads here, can we not simply put this issue to rest?