China’s Xhengdu Tianfu Airport opened up for it’s first commercial flight on Sunday June 27th. The new Airport is located about 50km south-east of Chengdu’s city center, and will serve travelers to the Sichuan province in addition the already existing Shuangilu airport, making Chengdu the 3rd city in China to have two international airport, in addition to Beijing and Shanghai.
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As part of my job at Hong Kong International Airport I was invited to join the GFS for a day of flying as a passenger to see how they operate, what help they need from us air traffic controllers, and to learn more about how we can work even better together than we are now. This was the 2nd time I was invited to spend a day with the GFS, and this time I was lucky enough to be invited for a familiarization flight both in the Challenger 600 and a Airbus Helicopter H175 (EC75). Date of flight was June 16, 2020.
Keep on reading!It is quite rare nowdays with new airlines starting up, but The Civil Aviation Authorities of Hong Kong are processing the new airline’s application for an air operator certificate in Hong Kong.
The owner of the airline is Bill Wong Chu-bau, a Hong Kong resident who is also the owner of Senzhen-based airline Donghai.
Continue reading “Will newcomer Greater Bay Airline be Hong Kong’s new operator?”
Boarding was about 30 minutes delayed, and the gate area was very crowded, but again I was offered the priority boarding, as I had paid for a priority seat (emergency exit).
Looking on the apron of the airport today, I saw an Etihad Airbus A380 parked there, something that you normally don’t see here. I then realized that I haven’t seen any Etihad passenger flights recently, so I went to their webiste to see the status of the flights.
Etihad has since February 21st canceled their one daily flight to Hong Kong, and this cancellation remains in force until March 28th. Seeing how the number of flights in Hong Kong has dropped and near empty terminals, I believe there is a good chance that this cancellation will be extended past this date.
Why there is an Etihad A380 here is still a mystery though….
SpiceJet has announced that they are temporarily canceling all flights between Delhi and Hong Kong until the 29th of February 2020. This is a lot shorter that most other operators (most other airlines who have canceled has done so until late March or April), so I think there is a good chance that we will see further extensions to this suspension as well.
Royal Brunei has announced that they are canceling most of their flights between Brunei and Hong Kong until the 27th of March due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Their schedule seems to indicate that they are still operating a couple of flights per week, so if you are planning to travel with them, check their website before making alternative arrangements.
So this was the most disappointing part of the trip, when I made the booking the flight showed with Q-suites, but about 2 weeks before departure I got an email saying there has been change of equipment, and looking at the seat map I realized we were to fly in a Boeing 777 with the ‘old’ business class.
This will be the shortest part of the trip report, as it is also the shortest flight and there really isn’t much to tell…
As I have just completed my 2019 review, I am realizing how far behind I am in my collecting of memories of my travels last year, so this year I will really try to speed up the posting.
Although I have been able to complete some of the posts I was planning to, I see that the job ahead of me is quite tremendous, as I am just starting to realize how much time it takes to just make one post. Good thing is that I don’t have a lot of travels planned in the coming month, so I should have some time to try to get up to speed…
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