I flew sha-pek and back this week (10p flights each way; kudos to my boss for the efficient scheduling:D), and both flights landed close to on time. However, both flights also parked at stands 15+ mins away from their terminals. Actually, the return flight parked at a jetbridge...so we were surprised that they made us walk down the stairs to waiting buses. But, then we realized that we were on the wrong side of the airport. Apparently, the airplane was heading to HK or tyo the following morning and mu decided it would be nice to park it at t1 (rather than tow it over after dropping off the 300 of us at t2).

I recently travelled on a Shandong Airlines (SC) flight from Shenzhen (SZX) to Jinan (TNA) which was scheduled to depart at 11am. On my way to the airport, I received an e-mail notifying me that the flight had been cancelled. As soon as I arrived at the airport, I went to the SC ticketing desk where, after around 15 mins of waiting, I was rebooked onto the next SC flight at 3:30pm (an earlier Shenzhen Airlines (ZH) flight leaving at 1pm was full).

Shandong Airlines offered passengers affected by the flight cancellation free hotel accommodation in Shenzhen Airport Hotel (深圳机场大酒店) during our wait for the next flight. We were also provided with free shuttle bus transfers between the airport and the hotel, and a lunchbox was delivered to our hotel room. The hotel was absolutely filthy and cigarette smoke could be smelt everywhere. The lunchbox was oily and unappetising. Not a very nice experience, and in retrospect it would have been better simply to have waited in the airport terminal.

Is it common for airlines to provide hotel accommodation where the delay is significant (4 hrs+)?

Fortunately, the 3pm SC flight left SZX and arrived in TNA on time! The irony was that the 1pm ZH flight was also delayed and the 3pm SC flight ended up arriving in Jinan at around the same time as the 1pm ZH flight.

Seems Shandong Airlines tried pretty hard to make your cancelled flight not being that hard.

Sure, a smoky room and a bad lunch aren't great, but I've to applaud for their effort. Probably not much else was possible in the short timeframe.. (Was it actually a smoking room? Or did they gave you a smelly "non smoking" room? I would have complained with the hotel for sure if the later..)

I've had similar delays at many airports, and "premium" airlines like LH or LX would give you a food voucher good for a single coffee OR a single water in such cases.. would have preferred Shandong's treatment most probably..

Yes, that's SOP. You were lucky to get a hotel so close to the airport and not have to share your room with a stranger.

I have a colleague who commutes between sxz and sha. He ends up in hotels once every 8 weeks. This past Sunday, cz put him up at the Ramada plaza in bao'an, which isn't much closer to the airport than his house.

During his July delay ex-pvg, there weren't enough hotel rooms available at 2a, so the airline gave all pax y1000, and set them on their own.

There weren't any non-smoking rooms available when I requested one at reception. Tbh, the whole building smelt of cigarette smoke.

2 economy class passengers were allocated to each room (fortunately I had a travel companion). First class passengers were each given a room.

I would actually have preferred receiving RMB1000 instead of the abysmal hotel room! Given its terrible condition and service, I think the only reason Shenzhen Airport Hotel is still open is that it relies on business from IRROPs passengers.

Of course y1000 (cash) is better than a y100 hotel room!

The (nearly finished) Hyatt place looks pretty nice.

A couple of years ago, I was flying with Shandong from Lanzhou to Urumqi.

Soon after getting to the airport (and it's faaaar from downtown), I discovered that the Jinan-originating flight was delayed. They offered meals and a shared room at the airport hotel. Can't really complain about how they handled it, 'cept that non-Chinese speakers would've been in the dark.

As for your comment about a smoking room...do non-smoking rooms exist in China? IME, only at the higher-end foreign chains, perhaps.

My flight tonight (pvg-nng) actually arrived early. My three previous flights have also been night flights, and two of them were close to on time as well. The third was an 845p departure that became a 1045p departure (advised by ctrip when we were checking in), but it really did leave at 1045p in the end.

Update: Hyatt Place and Hyatt House Shenzhen Airport now accepting reservations for stays starting from 1 June 2016!

Room rates: Hyatt Place is 638 RMB (+15% service charge) per night (flexible rate) and Hyatt House is 678 RMB.

5,000 Hyatt points to redeem a one night stay

http://shenzhenairport.place.hyatt.c...otel/home.html
http://www.shenzhenairport.house.hya...otel/home.html

Here we go...first air flow control warning into PRC from HKG

http://www.hongkongairport.com/eng/s...sp_detail.html

Repeated today, with Hongqiao listed for delayes as well:

"Delay season" is now in full force. During the course of the past three weeks, I have flown between Shanghai and HKG, SZX, MFM. Only one of my 6 flights was close to being on time.

The "use morning flights" strategy hasn't helped matters much, apart from the fact that spending 8 daytime hours at hongqiao is preferable to having the delay interrupted by a three hour hotel stay (which typically happens at around midnight).

My boss flew HKG-SHA yesterday on MU... 6p flight, and he arrived at 4a.

I requested a moderator to remove the wikipost because it's simply impossible for us to offer useful advice.

Just be prepared for long delays, and plan on treating the airport like a Starbucks/office. :D

MX or WX? What was the cause of the delay?

I flew SHA-PEK last week, and the cause was supposedly ATC at PEK delaying flights. The worst part wasn't the delay, but it was the lack of updates. I was in the CA lounge at SHA and the person at the lounge entrance told me the flight was delayed, but said she didn't have any more info than that. The flight status info at the entrance to the lounge simply said "delayed" but didn't give an expected time. CA's website, which should be the authoritative source on this, still said the flight was on time, even after the flight status info was showing delayed. Then CA started showing delayed, as did flightaware, but the expected departure times on each were different. Google still was showing on time by this point.

It ended up being only about a 1 hour delay, but I really wondered if anyone knew what was going on. When a UA flight gets delayed, I typically get calls and texts directly from the airline informing me of the delay, as well as what the new expected departure time is. From CA I just got crickets, and conflicting info from various sources.

No issues for me at PVG T1 today. Arrived early thinking there would be lines but was through security within 15 minutes of getting out of the car. MU flight to Chicago departed within 20 minutes of scheduled time which is pretty good by MU standards. Clear day definitely helped...