Came back on ka905 this morning. 905 took off on time yesterday so i was hopeful for on time departure with good weather.

Everything seemed to be in order except the train from terminal to gate broke down. So we had to wait for about 60 pax. Push back came around 9am and but did not take until10:30

Not quite.. they fly higher.. 45,000 isn and the airways are clear. Commerical traffic doesn't go higher than 41,000.. so lots of traffic there and below.

KA 900 left on time though.. had the train not broken you would have been fine.

It is a published fact known around the world that China's Air Force controls the airspaces in China and they only release about 20-30% of airspace to commercial traffic. It has nothing to do with how high they can fly, or how low they can fly, it's about whether they have the green light to fly at all.

Also, China's Air Force is known to hold last minute "drills" and will close down an air space at a second's notice. Many of my colleagues have told me their flights were turned back MID-FLIGHT because the air space is closed off for military exercises.

The PLA usually refrains from doing "drills" in Beijing or Shanghai, but they sneak them in on occasion. About 5 years ago, they managed to shut down both Shanghai airports for the better part of a day.

Yeah, about 2-3 years ago, my colleague was flying from Guangxi to Hong Kong, 1 hour into flight the plane is turning back, and the pilot told the pax the air space has been shut down and they are not allowed to go forward, so they have to turn back..... ouch!

I happen to live in Guangxi now. We're getting HSR to Gangzhou soon. :)

I long for the day they finally finished the link to Hong Kong, and speed up HSR back to 350km/h, this will really eradicate the most of the need to fly in China unless you're going somewhere 3+ hours in flying.

KA 906 landed at 1am last night.. Super late due to inbound aircraft from HGH delayed due PLA ATC nonsense, and KA being short of servicable aircraft. The run down 330's are showing their age.

END OF KA perhaps.. if you can take a highspeed train from Kowloon Station to PEK in 5hrs , would you ever bother flying?

Well, at current 300 km/h the fastest train (G80) takes 8 hours from Guangzhou to Beijing. Even at 350 km/h it would need 7 hours. So there *might* still be a reason to fly, but personally, we're talking about PEK, I would take the high speed rail, pay for the lay-flat business class seat and relax for 7 hours.