tentseller

HI BJer's

My cousin's family will be repatriated back to US for their one year furlow leave departing PEK on AC32. They are infrequent traveler family with 3 kids 2@8yrs and a 3 yrs old with maximum allowable luggage/carry-on.

They will be connecting in YYZ to MSP(Home). There is a flight change and now their YYZ transit is 1h20m.

Does anyone know whether PEK operations is back to normal (for PEK)?

TIA

Jiatong

PEK is back to normal, BUT , this airport does about 1500 flights a day, & when the afternoon storms roll in, that is when there are 'delays'.

So ?, are they on Air C., T-3, or Hainan air, T-2 ?. Its a looong 14 hour flight with children..., You should be ok in YYZ with a connection to MSP if on time arrival.

tentseller

Thanks. I can offer assistance at YYZ. It is the PEK departure that I am concerned with no control or knowledge of the departure on time chances.

I have set up backup plans if they mis-connect and miss the last flight to MSP

jiejie

PEK wasn't flooded, so your thread title is a bit off. Certainly it was affected most of Saturday by rainstorms, which spilled over into Sunday getting things back to "normal."

And normal at PEK usually means delays for Air Traffic, even if weather is cooperative. There are two things going for them on this route, though:
1) The long haul flights usually come closer to getting out on schedule.
2) Heading eastbound, usually there is a positive push from the Jet Stream, so even if a delay of say an hour, the pilots can often make it up en route, put the pedal to the metal (so to speak) and arrive on schedule (sometimes a bit early).

There's a limit as to how much you can worry about things out of your control, all you can do is what you are doing...have a Plan B backup. One thing they need to be apprised of, if they don't already know, is procedure for doing the US Immigration/Preclearance in YYZ. I presume this includes picking up their bags there for Customs purposes, rather than at MSP? With only a 1 hr 20 min connection, this could be the bigger problem with making the connection, not any delay at PEK. I'm not sure if they have the option to skip this, focus on making the next flight, and just do incoming/US Immigration and Customs at MSP.

moondog

The floods dissipated quickly, and are no longer a factor. Yes, it's supposed to rain during each of the next 5 days, but the current wave of storms is arguably too mild to cause a hiccup at PEK. That having been said, even when the weather is perfect, 1-hour delays are common for afternoon departures. The airlines know is, and have padded their schedules accordingly (it does not take anywhere close to 14 hours to fly from Beijing to Toronto).

Jiatong

[QUOTE=moondog; The airlines know is, and have padded their schedules accordingly (it does not take anywhere close to 14 hours to fly from Beijing to Toronto). [/QUOTE]

Hainan Air 7975; leaves PEK @ 1:55pm and arrives Toronto @ 3:10 pm. 13hr 15min. off by about 5% on the flight time !.

moondog

Much to my surprise, AC blocks the same route for 12hr 40min (I thought it would have been longer because, unlike HU, they are responsible for transporting passengers to destinations beyond Toronto). But, that's still a solid 40 mins of schedule padding.

mediator

The flood is mitigated by now.

tentseller

Thanks for the info form the normal knowledgeable BJers. Next time I am in BJ we should meet for real BJ Duck, on me.

The flight ended up leaving 20 minutes late but I got a notification that the arrival is 45 late this morning EST. Aiiiyahhhh!

Looks like half of my "plan for the worse; pray for the best" is half true.

Good thing I booked a guest suite at my condo and cleaned up my guest room.

Just an update, as a policy change to help AC get more business TPAC and TATL the NEW inetrnational arrival transit to US departure at YYZ T1 (AC's terminal, also most *A flights) is:
US bound passenger are given a quick travel document check and is then sent to US CBP preclear. NO MORE NEEDS TO CLAIM BAGS AND GO THROUGH CANADIAN CBSA CUSTOMS. If US customs wants/needs to check your bags it will then be id'ed and brought to the bag screening area.
After that it is a CATSA security check and you are in US departure.