Researching the past few days' flights, I opted for a right window hoping to see the city upon take-off.







We took off towards the east, passing a seemingly newer T4 along the way.





Xiamen sits on an island and after crossing the water, we emerged over a newer district then looped around for the westbound flight to Hong Kong. My right window should command a stunning aerial view of the city.











As we looped back, I spotted the eastern coastline and the huge white ferry terminal for departures to Kinmen, which is part of Taiwan and only slightly offshore.







On the other side of the water is a western district with new beautiful waterfront highrises. Haicang is connected by the metro's Line 2 with Xiamen.









The smaller island at the bottom is Gulangyu, once a European enclave that has retained a lot of heritage buildings. Today, it is a major tourist hotspot.



With beautiful weather, the views were incredible as we flew along the coast.







I doubt most people on the plane would fly solely to Hong Kong for the sake of it, since taking the train is much cheaper and takes about the same time gate to gate. They're probably connecting to somewhere else.



I was surprised the crew took out the big food carts and started distributing a hot meal. With ascent and descent within the 54 minute flight, the crew scrambled to give out meals to everyone. I felt sorry for them as I could see how frantic they were and they worked hard. These short flights are quite a torture and I really wouldn't mind if I got a bun in a bag which I used to get for Taipei and Manila ages ago. Those are easy and quick to distribute.

Being at the back of a full widebody, the meal reached me half way through, an incredible feat. I empited it as quickly as I could and the crew soon came frantically collecting the trays once again as we were descending into Hong Kong. They didn't even have time to change the carts and I saw one collecting the trays with her hands and arms and rushing out back to the galley.



By the time all the trays were collected and we settled down, we only had 15 minutes left before landing.







I guessed we would be landing on the 3rd runway as we flew over some landmarks in an unusually close way, such as Tai Mo Shan and Tuen Mun. I got the same approach a few weeks ago returning from Shanghai but the weather was worse and the sun was setting so the views were not as nice.















We touched down at 1:48pm, followed by a very long taxi to gate 65.





It was strange to see a sea of Cathay planes parked at the infield satellite terminal. This used to be Hong Kong Airlines' base, which is no longer a real competitor thanks to crisis after crisis.





Although this was my shortest flight with Cathay ever, the crew today worked so hard to serve us a hot lunch with so little time to maneuver. We all need to appreciate the efforts and sweat our crews go through in order for us to have a pleasant short flight. Shout out to them and thank you!

More photos on my website : https://www.globalphotos.org/cx973.htm