Originally Posted by
mclachlan4321
CX238. It’s one ticket, so I assume it must meet MCT. Is transferring painless at HKG? It’s a long time since I’ve done it.
Originally Posted by
cxwaterboy
Transfer at HKG is relatively civilised. They tend to have agents waiting at the gate for those with tight connections. Sometimes they might escort you through security or even hold the flight for a short period. Worst case scenario you’ll be booked onto the next flight. Just beware your luggage might not make it to your connecting flight.
Definitely painless.
There is perhaps one small annoyance these days, which is that all the mid-concourse transfer points seem to be closed (but otherwise not indicated as such on the HKIA website, and they have all the lights on when you walk by, just nobody home). I think it's an airport staffing issue. The airport does not say these are temporarily closed which is obnoxious since I have yet to see them open this year. (I believe others have reported them being sometimes open, but I'm back to traveling whereby I'm arriving at HKG around once a week, and I make a point of looking for the closest one each time these days, and have yet to see one open.) I started a thread about it a few months back although it got moved (separate issue: we need a moderator!! have our old venerable moderators
cxfan1960 and
sxc left us? I don't think this thread, which is perhaps in a gray area but definitely not cut and dry "must be moved", gets moved if we have one. It's talking exclusively about the CX section of T1, and related to The Pier.)
That aside, here's the thread.
Smaller HKIA Transit Points: Do They Ever Open (Esp near Pier?). So depending on your CX arrival gate, maybe an extra 5-10 minutes is warranted since you may have to walk slightly out of the way. But honestly it's not a big deal, which is probably why they're still unstaffed. They're a luxury but not a necessity. As
cxwaterboy mentions, for anything even coming close to a tight connection (maybe 1:15 or less) CX will have staff waiting there for you. Either they can radio up and say you're on your way, or if it's really tight they'll escort you. Either way unless you do something crazy you're not missing your connection. (And if your inbound flight arrives late, and they've decided to push the other flight without you, that's a decision they will have made on your behalf and they'll have the bad news ready for you at the arrival gate. It's not like you're going to be rolling the dice and maybe you'll make it maybe you won't.)
Connecting at HKG is about as easy as it gets anywhere, in my view, including other countries' domestic airports, and it's especially impressive given that HKG is a one of the world's major airports and gateways.