Air China
Business Class (C)
CA901: PEK-ULN (Beijing to Ulaanbaatar)
23 May 2018
Boeing 737-800
Seat 2C
Scheduled Departure: 08:35AM
Scheduled Arrival: 10:50AM
Actual Departure: 06:25PM
Actual Arrival: 08:44PM
I got up around 5AM, quickly got ready, checked out and was on the 5:35AM shuttle to the airport. Air China Business Class Check-In counters had me sorted quickly and I was in T3E shortly thereafter. Exit immigration and security moved quickly, despite the lines and I was at the Air China First Class Lounge by 6:15AM. Overall, it was a pretty efficient operation despite the huge volumes this airport sees.
Pavilion Building
Near the Air China Lounge
Pavilion Building
Near the Air China Lounge
I love these strange signs
Since I was flying Air China Business Class, I had access to their First Class Lounge. Don't ask how that works because I don't quite understand it myself. In any event, the lounge is fairly large, but desperately in need of renovation. The carpet and furniture is old and stained and the food offerings are exceptionally lackluster. After perusing the available selection there, I headed downstairs to a restaurant for a bowl of noodle soup for breakfast. No photos, sorry.
By this time it's around 7:30AM and I'm getting ready to make my way to the gate to board. Then I get a notification from TripCase that my flight has been delayed by 10 hours. Hoping this had to be an error, I went back to the lounge to see what the deal was. The lounge attendant confirmed that my flight had been delayed by roughly 10 hours. I asked her to rebook me on another carrier, as a 10 hour delay did not work for my schedule. She was unable to do so, and, quite frankly, I knew the chances of Air China rebooking me on another carrier were basically zero. Further, she told me that I'd have to go back to the ticket counters at T3C in order to speak to someone whole could (theoretically) re-ticket me.
So, I decided to go to the gate to see if someone there could be of any help. Naturally, the gate area was unstaffed when I showed up. The gate agent eventually arrived and he said the cancellation was weather related, which was a lie. There were no weather advisories for either PEK or ULN. Rather, I believe the delay was caused by airspace restrictions enacted by the military. MIAT had a flight to ULN leaving an hour after mine, so I checked to see about getting on that flight. Of course that flight was also delayed by 9 hours or so.
Given the poor connectivity of ULN airport, I knew there was no possible way to get there any earlier than 8PM that evening. My tour was set to begin around 11AM that morning and I was going to fly out midday the next day. Given the unpredictability of the PEK-ULN flights, I didn't want to risk getting stuck in ULN either. So I decided to abandon the Mongolia plans entirely and stay in Beijing.
Now, I should mention that I was fully aware of the mess that is Chinese domestic flying (due to military airspace restrictions), which is the reason why I arrived the night before my Mongolia flight. Naively, I assumed that the huge unpredictable delays were typically confined to domestic flights. Thus I foolishly thought that my
international flights to/from Mongolia would operate more or less on time. Clearly that was a mistake. I will attempt another trip to Mongolia in the future, but next time I will depart from Tokyo or Seoul instead. I definitely will not transit Beijing again.
But first, I had to get out of the airport. So, I went to the security checkpoint to Lane 25 and went against the flow of passenger traffic to exit the secure area and found myself back in Immigration. I then proceeded to Lane 25 of the Immigration desks and told the officer I wanted to enter China. The phrase "go out" worked well to convey my message. The officer stamped "Cancelled" on my China departure stamp and waved me through. I then made it to the Automated People Mover (train), where the door to board was locked and staffed by a guard. She recorded my details and allowed me through. Soon enough, I was on the APM and arrived in T3C without much fuss.
I proceeded to the Airport Express train station and purchased a stored value card (Yikatong) for my rail travel in Beijing. Soon enough I was in Beijing city and I easily navigated my way to the Grand Hyatt via the MRT network. Overall, it was quite straight forward, though it did take around an hour.