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Trip Report CTU-HKG

Trip Report CTU-HKG

Old Mar 27, 2015, 7:35 am
  #1  
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Trip Report CTU-HKG

Trip Report CTU-HKG

As part of a recent business trip to China I have a completed a brief trip report from CTU (Chengdu) to HKG (Hong Kong). Chengdu is located in the Sichuan province of China and is known for spicy food dishes including the 'Hotpot' which provides an interesting and different way of cooking and eating food.

I had previously driven down from Mianyang which took about 2.5 hrs by car and arrived for my Sichuan Airlines flight which departed from terminal 1 at 2pm. The check in counter was 1-7 near the Chinese international departure immigration desks. I checked in around 1 hour before departure and queues were fairly long and took about 20 mins before it was my turn. On this flight Sichuan offers both economy and business class cabins arranged in 3x3 & 2x2 respectively, being in the economy cabin I took a window seat to try and get good views flying into HKG. The aircraft was fully booked.

I was leaving mainland China to return to the UK so handed in my departure card and made my way through security to the departure lounge. The departure area consists of a number of shops and eateries including traditional Chinese food restaurants / take away, souvenir shops including the famous Panda House and Starbucks.

There were two departures to HGK at the same time the other being a Dragon Air flight, both arrived late into CTU meaning both flights was delayed to around 3pm. Boarding was announced around 230pm and separate lanes were enforced for business and economy.


Sichuan Airlines A320

On boarding the captain announced a flight time of around 2hrs 10mins but suspected we would hold in Hong Kong airspace for around 20 mins. I imagined CTU to be a fairly quite airport but adverts for a number of major airlines were advertised including BA, Qatar, KLM and Etihad, not surprising as Chengdu is a large city which could easily be benchmarked against a western city and is looking to develop further.


CTU Airport With Thai A330

Anyway we taxied and waited for departure and were about number 6 in a line of aircraft waiting to depart. We took off on the westerly runway and banked round to start our trip to HKG. Sichuan offers inflight entertainment on this A320 aircraft and screens came down to show some sort of Chinese show.


Sichuan Airlines Economy Cabin

We were firstly offered drinks and then a meal service which can be seen in the photo. The photo does not really do the food justice as it was really tasty – the noodles were superb.


Sichuan Airlines Economy Meal


Sichuan Airlines Economy Meal Box


Southern China

After about 1.45 hrs we started descending into Hong Kong airspace and the captain announced there would be thick cloud, he wasn't wrong as I didn't see any landmarks until about 500 feet! We approached HGK from the east and landed over the sea landing around 530pm and made our way to a gate area next to a Air China A319. I noticed a number of other aircraft including Fuji Airlines, both BA aircraft and a Lufthansa 747.


HKG Arrivals Gate

Although we came out into a gate area we descended into a part of the terminal where you need to take a transfer bus to immigration. I was actually transferring onto a Virgin Atlantic flight (UC) to LHR but did not have an onward boarding pass. On arrival at HKG you need to fill out a landing card which I did and there are several booths to do this if the crew have not given you one on your previous flight. I went through immigration and out into terminal 1, fortunately Virgin departs from T1 but check in did not open for another 4 hrs so made my way to a restaurant which overlooks the check in area. Was very impressed with the layout of HKG. So that ended my flight with Sichuan and I have to say it was very pleasant the crew were very helpful and responsive and polite and spoke to me in English. I would definitely recommend them.

Last edited by simoflyer; Mar 28, 2015 at 3:56 am
simoflyer is offline  
Old Mar 27, 2015, 10:06 am
  #2  
 
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Interesting report. Thankyou.
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Old Mar 28, 2015, 1:03 pm
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Join Date: Aug 2004
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4 hours - if you were inclined you could have got the train into central and had a stroll around. Thanks for the tr.
stevie is offline  
Old Mar 28, 2015, 2:20 pm
  #4  
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I was tempted to travel into Hong Kong for a quick visit and it was recommended by my colleagues but I had some work to complete so just wanted to find somewhere quiet The VS clubhouse was heaving as the previous day's flight had been cancelled. Maybe next time...
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