Our original plan with a mid-afternoon departure was to do more sightseeing before heading to the airport. But we were exhausted from our marathon of sightseeing the day before, so we took it easy before packing and heading to the airport. We ordered an Uber and arrived at the airport about three hours before departure. It’s been a long time since I’ve arrived at the airport more than 90 minutes before departure, let alone three hours. Then again, this was the first time I’ve flown on an airline without any sort of status in years. So, I wanted to leave extra time in case of long lines, etc.
The flight appeared to be wide open in both classes when I checked ExpertFlyer before I left Houston. So, I was hoping for either some empty seats in coach or a cheap buy up to Business Class. When I checked again before we left the flat, the flight was zeroed out. The long line at for the Hainan check in counter was additional confirmation that the flight was indeed full.
The line moved fairly quickly, and we were soon beckoned to approach the counter by a contracted Czech Airlines agent. So… I did something stupid before our flight and screwed up our original seat assignments. I realized my mistake the night before, but Hainan locked down online seat selection at that point. Fortunately, the very nice agent did manage to seat us together albeit in the center section of four seats with one of us in the middle seat. That’s a far cry from our original selection of a set of two seats on the starboard side of the aircraft. Since I was the one that screwed up, I offered to take middle seat. Of course, my friend didn’t have any objections.
Free of our checked bags and boarding passes in hand, we breezed through immigration and headed to the Menzies Aviation lounge after a stop for souvenirs for family back home. There were two lounges accessible by Priority Pass in Terminal 1, one being the Menzies lounge and the other being the Mastercard lounge. The two lounges are located right across from each other and are virtually identical as far as I could tell. We ended up staying the Menzies lounge, since the view of the tarmac was better. Food options were slim, but there were a couple fridges stocked with cold beers. Naturally, we made a bee line to the beer fridge. My friend enjoyed a couple of last Czech beers. I pounded more than a few Czech beers to prepare for 9 hours in the middle seat.
Over the years, I’ve gone through great lengths to avoid middle seats in economy for obvious reasons, and it’s probably a substantial driving force in my obsession with maintaining elite status. In fact, the last time I was in a middle seat on a flight longer than an hour was back in 2006. It was on a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Orlando, an equipment downgrade from a 757-200 to a 737-500 scattered my entire family in middle seats in various corners of the cabin. I was probably had it the worst out of my family as I was assigned the middle seat on the very last no recline row of the plane. Since then, I’ve only been in the middle seat on a handful of flights between Dallas and Houston brought on by standing by for earlier flights. Well… all good things must come to an end; unfortunately, it had to come to an end on this 4,650-mile journey.
Hainan Airlines 7938
Prague (PRG) – Beijing (PEK)
Depart: 2:35PM
Arrive: 5:55 AM+1
Aircraft: Airbus A330-300
Seat: 59D (Economy)
March 27, 2017
Naturally, I tried finding some trip reports on Hainan in the weeks prior. I found only a handful of reports and most of those were for Business Class. In sense, it was kind of refreshing. While I’ve flown quite a few new airlines over the last couple of years, I knew exactly what to expect on those new airlines, right down to the food and drink, due to reports here on FlyerTalk and elsewhere on the interwebs. It was sort of fun not knowing what to expect in terms of the hard product and service. And hopefully, I can provide some information for y’all, in case anyone is considering Hainan economy in the future.
Though this was my first flight on Chinese flagged carrier, I had a good idea of what to expect with respect to the behavior of my fellow passengers from my visits to mainland China and the trip reports I’ve read on other Chinese airlines. My friend, however, was a bit shocked. We found some seats in what looked to be an empty corner of the gate area, but we were soon swarmed by other passengers arriving behind us. To our left was an old couple coughing up phlegm without covering their mouths. There were small children running around us screaming, while their parents were engaged in conversation at a volume that would be considered yelling in most of the world. A couple of passengers walked through the area where we sat and didn’t bat an eyelash when their carryon bags ran over my foot. In short, it was China, and we were both glad to have pre-gamed in the lounge.
Boarding began not long after we arrived at the gate. The entire mass of humanity at the gate rose in unison, grabbed their belongings, and rushed toward the boarding door. We decided to hang tight until everyone else boarded and enjoyed the serenity of the suddenly empty gate area for a few minutes.
We were among last passengers to board. My first impression was… red. Everything was red, including the carpet, the seat covers, and even the flight attendants’ uniforms. One of my biggest pet peeves with air travel is how long it takes most people to get situated on while boarding plane. It annoys me to no end watching people hold up the boarding line by camping out in the aisle seemingly packing or unpacking their entire carry-on bags. I make sure I have everything I need for the flight in my small carry-on, and I’ll only retrieve items from the overhead bin after take off, if I absolutely need something, or if I’m seated in the bulkhead. My fellow passengers on this particular flight took things to an extreme. I kid you not, pretty much every single passenger on that A330 was either standing in the aisle re-arranging their carry-ons or just standing in aisle to talk, either not caring or lacking awareness there were other people still trying to board the plane. Though we hadn’t pushed back yet, the flight attendants already looked worn out trying get everyone seated.
When we finally arrived at our seats, there was a gentleman already camped out at my friend’s seat. Thankfully, I speak passable Mandarin, so there was no need to wait for a flight attendant. The gentleman was traveling with the folks seated behind us and wanted us to swap seats so he could sit by his friends. But he wanted to swap his middle seat for my friend’s aisle seat. My rule for seat swaps is that the other passenger’s seat must be at least equal to my current seat. Or if a parent is trying sit next to their young child, I don’t mind taking a less favorable seat. In this case, neither of those criteria were met. Needless to say, the gentleman and his friends were not happy about it and loudly voiced their displeasure about my “selfishness”. I remained firm, and eventually he went back to his assigned seat. Man… we haven’t even sat down yet, and we both needed another drink.
The seats were decently comfortable. For what it’s worth, Seat Guru lists these seats as 19 inches wide compared to 17.3 inch width of the seats on the United 787. I didn’t take out my measuring tape, but this seat did feel wider than my seat on my United flight to London. And truth be told, the middle seat wasn’t as bad as I originally thought. I’m sure my friend sitting next to me helped, but at no time during the flight was I unbearably uncomfortable.
There were pillows and blankets already at each seat. The pillow was a little firm and had a nice cloth case (red of course) instead of gauze covers many airlines like to use in economy. Now, one could make the argument that the gauze cover is more sanitary as airlines would be forced to change it every flight. The cloth cases do look much classier, but it’s impossible to tell if the airline cleans the case after each flight. In case anyone is wondering, the blanket did come individually wrapped but the gentleman hoping to take my friend’s seat made himself at home and removed the wrapper.
Just after takeoff, the flight attendants came around with amenity kits which contained socks, an eye mask, a pair of socks, dental kit, and ear plugs. Other than Qatar, Hainan is the only other airline I’ve flown recently that offers amenity kits in economy class. The picture below was taken after the flight.
The entertainment system was already active at the gate. There was a pretty wide selection of Chinese movies, as you would expect from a Chinese airline. The selection of western movies was slim. There were a few recent films like Batman v. Superman, but not much else. Not a criticism, just pointing out facts. Luckily, I came prepared and downloaded Rogue One when it was released to iTunes, which incidentally was the day I left Houston. So I put up the moving map on the IFE and watched Rogue One on my laptop.
Service began with the distribution of menus, which I was pleased to see. The last time I saw a menu in economy class was on a Delta flight from Seattle to Seoul. Delta’s economy menus were printed on a flimsy cheap pamphlet type paper. However, Hainan’s were printed on nice thick card stock, which I think is nicer than American’s latest menu in their premium cabins.
I was realy needed a drink at this point. Beer was preferred, but the inflight selection was marginal at best. The liquor selection was a different story. I was pleased to see Chivas Regal 12 year on the drink menu. Though not the best scotch, it’s certainly very drinkable. And consider for a moment the “Big 3” US airlines offered Dewars as scotch until recently. I’m only flying economy class, and it was available. I ordered that and a cup of water, which were promptly served with a smile. It was very tasty.
Meals were served short time later. My friend and I both chose the noodles, which was pretty tasty. The menu didn’t specify what kind of meat the meatballs were made from, though they tasted kind of porky and were perfectly edible. I like potato salad and tuna salad. But I don’t like them together, and the slice of turkey was a bit strange too. So, I left those untouched, and I ate the cherry tomato. I mean just one tomato. It was fresh. I did appreciate the real silverware, which most airlines don’t offer anymore in economy. I can’t say I blame them for that. When my grandparents passed away a couple of years ago, I found silverware from Singapore, Korean, JAL, and, heck, even US Air in their silverware drawer.
The only problem was “bring your own device” inflight entertainment is having nowhere stash your device during meal service. I just shoved my laptop in the seatback pocket while I ate. The only problem was that I couldn’t take my laptop back out until trays were cleared awhile later. Which was fine, I found some games on the seatback entertainment system to pass time in the interim.
A drink run was made after trays was cleared. I chose the coconut juice. It was probably water, sugar, and bunch of stuff from a chemistry lab, but man was it delicious.
I’m probably one of five people on this planet who likes redeye flights. I like being able to get to my destination without wasting a day and save some cash or hotel points. However, I didn’t like the timing of this redeye flight. A redeye departing at mid-afternoon is just screwy. Despite not having any substantial sleep since I left Houston, I could not fall asleep on this flight.
Although I moaned about being stuck in the middle seat, I think I had it better than my friend in the aisle seat. People were constantly moving around in the aisle getting stuff from the overhead bins above him and dropping whatever item they were retrieving on him. Others would bump into him while walking around. To top it all off, the folks across the aisle from him and the good folks behind him were constantly coughing without covering their mouths. In short, the intrusions were constant, and my friend was more than a little annoyed.
I spent most of the flight watching episodes of How I Met Your Mother on my laptop, inspired by the aforementioned Legenda(i)ry A321. Finally, we were less than 2 hours from Beijing and the smells of breakfast cooking began wafting through the cabin.
Breakfast was a choice of an omelet or more noodles. We both chose the omelet with more of that delicious coconut juice. The morsel of chicken was a bit strange, but overall breakfast was edible.
We touched down smoothly at Beijing Capital International Airport on time. Before the pilots could deploy reverse thrust, half the cabin had their seatbelts off and were trying get their bags out of the overhead bins. Pretty much in unison, the flight attendants started yelling for everyone to sit down and buckle up. The people who got up for the most part ignored the flight attendants. The lack of respect of authority and decorum carried on after the parking brake was set. There was plenty of pushing and shoving and my friend got whacked with a couple of more bags while deplaning. He was ready cuss someone out, or worse. I didn’t blame him, but I was in no mood to deal with it either. So, we trudged on and finally got off the plane.
This was a particularly hard flight to grade. On one hand, everything within the airline’s control was above average. The food was edible. Flight attendants were attentive and well intentioned. Many aspects of the product are better than many other airlines. However, the behavior of the other passengers marred experience. In addition to everything I already written about, many other passengers were incredibly rude and demanding toward the flight attendants. The flight attendants deserve a lot of credit for remaining their composure and doing their very best to satisfy the demands of those passengers. It was painfully obvious the flight attendants were worn out and tired of said demands. I would probably would be in a gulag for punching out a passenger, if I had to walk a mile in their shoes. As I mentioned in the beginning, I expected this sort of behavior, but it was still shocking to me to witness it firsthand. This was far worse than I’ve ever experienced during my prior visits to mainland China
I’m glad I got to fly Hainan, and the flight was overall good, but Five Star good??? Meh. Anyhow, I wouldn’t actively seek to fly Hainan in the future, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to avoid them.