The US is a pretty low bar to begin with, and even with that, I've never had to wait 90 minutes in line to get a paper boarding pass despite being hand-carry only. This wasn't to get through security.

Which US airline turned off getting checked in online with a mobile pass or something to show electronically to get on board? It's not a minor glitch. They turned off the functionality entirely.

After that anxiety attack waiting for the check-in counter, luckily the flight was normal. A hot meal is quite typical in this part of the world even for a 2 hour flight. I've had 1 hour hops with a hot rice plucked in front of me.

This (bolded), alone = great inbound international flight IMO.

Great trip report. I wouldn't say it was that bad, it could have been much worse I think. But I'm sorry you didn't quite enjoy it. I understand your disappointment. I have had some similar experiences at airports in the past and I know I wouldn't want that to happen again. I hope besides the airport experience, you liked your trip. I'm thinking about going there next year and I would appreciate any tips. I wouldn't really mind it if the airport was crowded, but I'd like the trip itself to be enjoyable.

I suppose things will change a lot by this time next year hopefully, but so far a few months into China's re-opening, there aren't many foreign tourists around. Life on the ground has gotten back to normal though. There are heaps of domestic tourists and Shanghai was buzzing with crowds. So even though international tourism is still in a depression, the tourist sights are not empty at all. Locals have a lot of trouble finding airplane seats out of the country for vacation, so they're still touring within China.

I tried both of Shanghai's airports on this trip and their international sections were deserted. Flights are still nowhere near prepandemic levels so going through immigration and security were a breeze. I'll post another trip report on my outbound flight where I pretty much had the entire Pudong new satellite terminal to myself.

There are still some administrative hurdles such as applying for the health QR code for both arriving and leaving China, while some cities have also sampled inbound arrivals for COVID tests. On this trip in particular, the choice of airline proved the most important consideration. It's something I could control whereas the airport arrival experience I need to take it as is.

You're greatly overstating the complexity of this drill. After you use the miniprogram (or app, or website) once, your profile information is saved so you only have to input your new entry/exit details (e.g. date, flight number, seat) every time thereafter.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...84815b817d.jpg

Getting a foreigner to set up WeChat and Alipay with an overseas credit card for the first time would be a lot more complex than an administrative hurdle, which they will need to do anyway to pay for their meals, book attraction tickets, and pretty much survive during their time in China.

I suppose it would be more useful if I put this stuff in the one of the China forum threads, but since I'm here.

There are 5 ways to complete the health declaration, and the first 4 are interconnected (i.e. you can access your profile from any of them)

1. Website
https://htdecl.chinaport.gov.cn

2.WeChat mp
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e2400d2abd.png

3. Native apps
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...88b0cafdaa.png
4. Kiosk (that looks sort of like an ATM) at checkpoint; I had to use a kiosk once upon entry because the scanner rejected my QR code, but this only cost me an extra 60 seconds

5. Paper form (I believe their law requires them to make these available for people that aren't into technology)

#2 is the most popular method.

What would be more horrendous?
1. Zero OLCI (the case here)
2. Zero catering (anywhere in the world)
3. More than 30-60 minutes from plane departure to landslide after an international flight and with zero checked bags (for this TR, only 30 min!)

ngl as I buy my own airport catering and I’ve never actually flown internationally without carryon. The airport experience for getting onto the plane in this TR reminds me of my wife’s challenge for cuba > Mia at the airport. Mega queue and fears of missing the flight.

I’m so addicted to OLCI & curbside (luggage) that I would also freak out if OLCI wasn’t available and I had to arrive hours before the flight only to see this nonsense. I can see why one would call this horrendous even though I still assumed worse.

Excellent question:tu: Like you, I think 2 is trivial in comparison to 1 and 3,...provided we are talking about ~2-hour flights (I still harbor bad feelings against AC for failing to provide more than ~750 calories to me on PVG-(ICN)-YYZ-MCO last year).

And, I'd encourage you to rephrase 3 to reflect the reality of Shanghai international arrivals (i.e. let's assume that both 1 and 3 are 2 hour time sucks).

I suppose I do think 1 is "more horrendous", simply because it entails an anxiety component that 3 lacks. However, I have regrettably pre-conditioned myself to be ready for 1 (e.g. I now get to JAX 2 hours before every single flight because the TSA there has managed to secure a "horrendous++" rating in my book). But, in the OP's case, managing to escape from SHA 90 minutes faster than (mentally) allocated would have gone a long way towards counterbalancing 1.

Ngl I definitely imagined a false-positive Covid test or some other horrible experience that lasted for days. Just days of being inconvenienced. We should all remember one FTer who had a RTW type trip in 2021 including Mongolia. For a simple connection in ICN he tested positive and received Covid treatment in a hotel; I still don’t know if they served good bancha in the hotel. Meals were conveniently brought to his hotel room. Sarcasm of course since he was quarantined in the hotel room. That to me would also be horrendous.

for all the MU tech fiasco, it sounds like the staff made big efforts to take care of pax who had true risk of missing flights. Doesn’t sound like a situation of chatty staffers ignoring the queue as we’ve read about elsewhere in FT. So it doesn’t even sound like there was true risk of missing the flight. Obviously lounge time and plane spotting time was lost. That bites.

guess we know why MU was cheaper at 1200 hkd lol

I apologize if I missed this, but how do you know that the airline shut off its online check in technology? Simply because it wouldn't work for you? Why would it be in their best interest to put more people in line than necessary?

MU honestly doesn't suck anymore:
-their 330s (even the old ones) are a lot more comfortable your typical Delta or United airplane
-good wifi on most flights
-edible food
-nice people
-increasingly competent operations (they are still far from the top of this mountain, but year-on-year progress is demonstrable)

That said, I always aim for KA when flying northbound from HKG, even on A320s...unless they are only offering PVG while MU has Hongqiao too.

I agree with everything except that. Did something change during the pandemic? The last few MU tpac I took, the WiFi was unusable.

If I'm flying HKG-China, my first choice would be CX since I want to use their lounges.

I specifically asked one of the staff helping to manage the queue why we can't do online check-in or kiosk check-in so we don't need to all crowd around the counters. He told me they were all turned off by the airline.

They had 1 counter in that check-in row to manage imminently cut-off departures but even that one had a substantial line since MU had 4 flights leaving within a short 90 minute window. Out of those the 2 Shanghai flights were widebodies, but even an A320 can seat 150 in Y which was why the regular and emergency lines got crazy. Hence, some were screaming for attention worried about the cut-off but when a crowd that big starts getting rowdy, the staff on hand won't be able to handle them despite best efforts.

By the time I got my boarding pass, I was right at that check-in cutoff, and the line snaked around a few more times behind me. So they must've made some exceptions to accept their bags and keep printing boarding passes because we ended up departing full.

I think the ground staff did the best in these circumstances. I'd rather they send workers to the counters to process us than to have them walking around policing the lines and giving empty comforting words to irritated passengers. But as a passenger, I wouldn't assume they would make exceptions to get us through when clearly the clock has run out, and that was where the frantic stress really bit. None of the staff that helped with the line committed to anything, or gave any such reassurances.