Yeah, did some flying on the trip. Worked for a company that is a major olympic sponsor. Have the chance to go back and work for them again in July and possibly durring the olympics. Keeping my fingers crossed.
General aviation is not nearly as common in China as it is in the US so almost all of the flying was into and out of the major airports. Given that there are a few things that are a pain, but then their facilities are amazing. We could certainly learn something from them when it comes to airport design and layout. Communication with tower and enroute control was difficult at times, but we worked thru it. English is the official language of aviation the world over. Controlers and pilots will speak in their native tounge at times, but if you have a situation in which two languages are being spoken everyone is to change to english. Again, mostly not a problem, but then there was this instruction while we are flying level at 10,000 feet. Control: "Descend and maintain 12,000." WTF? Does he want me higher or lower? But hey we get weird requests from US controlers too.
We also had to do a lot of metal calculations at times as we were issued some altitudes in meters. Nothing crazy, just not something we are used too, and you find yourself checking and rechecking just to be sure. The other strange thing is upon departure your plane doesn't move until released by the Red Army. You don't move until you get his salute. Same for commercial flights as it was for us.
As a passenger the airports were amazing. Huge terminals with natural light everywhere. Baggage carts for free anywhere you might need them, including at the curb as the taxi drops you off. You can't take it thru security, but then there was another ready for you right beyond security. When you stepped of the plane there was another one right off the Jet Bridge. Security while just as complete was handled with much more class and courtesy. You also don't have to take your shoes off, instead you put each foot on this angled scanner one foot at a time. Further when you put your stuff in one of those little bins to slide it thru the xray machine they hand you a big laminated card that has the same number as your bin. Then on the other side of the metal detector you must hand over the card before you get a bin back. No stolen items here or worrying about someone picking up your stuff by accident.
I flew the company plane over so no comment on international arrivals on a commercial flight, but our domestic flights on Dragonair and Air China were great. I would fly on either one again anytime. I flew 26 segments and was a commerical pax on 9. Flew home on Cathay Pacific and they are highly recommended. We had one business class seat and then one seat in coach. The company I was working for paid for the business class seat and we didn't spring for the $12,000 difference between the two. However, the airline was great and put our coach seat in the first row and our business class seat in the last row. We switched about midway thru the flight. The person sleeping in business and the other watching the individual TV moniter with movies, TV shows, Games, etc. They weren't too keen on taking pictures of their airports but here are a few I did take.
Checkin area of Terminal 2 at Shanghai Pudong (the new airport). Notice lanes A thru G are visable in this photo, H thru M are behind me and each lane has 85 checkin stations.
Arrivals level of Shanghai Terminal 2. This is the last 1/10th of the terminal. Most of it is behind me, but with the smaller camera I couldn't show the depth.
23:00 arrival in Hong Kong. 85 gates are not enough so our flight from Shanghai gets the short straw and the remote stand.
Notice the use of two airbridges. Really speeds things up.
Terminal 3 at Beijing. Again notice the seperation of arriving and departing pax. Helps the airport feel uncrowded as you only see half the people.
That army dispatcher I spoke of.
The facilities don't end at the terminal either. Shanghai has one of the world's only MagLev train. It can move at close to 500km/h. However, so as not to make the pax sick with the view flashing by at such a high speed they limit it to 300 - 350 km/h. That is roughly 190 mph. Our trains don't even come close.
Steve, yeah I did out kick the coverage but then I would guess most of us on here did, based on the pics and those that I have met. The kicker though is she is a huge football fan. And now that she is in the MBA program at Texas she has student tickets to damn near everything, even if they are a bit removed from the action. I'll post a pic of the two of us at the Texas v RICE game this fall.
