Cx315 "prc atc delay" rant
 

why only 315!!!

sorry i take that back
255 lhr
233 mxp
315 mad all still on ground

well, tlv too

TLV, MXP and 255 also sitting with you.

Why so systematic. Only 4 got left behind

Maybe it's Xi Jingping flying back to the Motherland?

Doubt it. Traffic wasn't touched on his arrival at HKG...he landed amidst commercial traffic and a normal arrival sequence. No short cut even. I was at the airport and flipped open Flightradar....pretty amazing how professional they handled it with almost no impact to travelers.

China has screwy stuff, but their leaders flying around aren't a tenth the hassle of AF1....when the whole tarmac can shut down for 30-60 minutes. I've had the displeasure of facing that twice. It sucks.

A bit different on the ground, however. I had the opportunity to watch his motorcade twice as it snaked its way from Man Po Street into Lung Wo Road. It stretched from IFC all the way to the Convention Center, must have been over 100 cars long. They closed off all traffic North of Connaught Road between the Western Tunnel and the Convention Center for the motorcade.

I have no idea what's going on for the 2nd half of June, it's been ATC all the time with European departures being affected almost as much as those bound for PVG/PEK. Time to time I've seen many flights (with no exemptions I think, even for like 251) stuck at HKG for an additional couple of hours. Presumably because most of them have to pass through the two airways that funnel aircraft from HK onwards to Siberia/Europe. My dad was heavily delayed to PEK on the very day when some PEK-bound flights from SIN/CGK etc were actually 'forced' to land in HKG and wait until they were happy to let flights through again.

Actually it was CAN ATC that impose the traffic flow control northbound to PEK / PVG... No idea whether this is requested by PEK / PVG or decided by CAN ATC... So unless those from SIN / CGK flew other routes to PEK / PVG they were subject to the same flow restriction....

I was always wondering flying Japan / S.Korea first then return back to PEK / PVG / Europe would be better or not...

I think a lot of this has been due to bad weather in southern China through June. My experience is that every time thunderstorms come along China's ATC suffers hiccups.

When that happens I suspect the inbound flights from further away e.g. from SIN get priority as they are already half way in. So flights ex-HKG, SZX and CAN suffer disproportionately as they can be held on the ground, whereas it is more difficult to hold flights en route in mid-air.