Christmas and spotting at HKG

[King F. Hui]

Air Canada AC007 YVR-HKG C-FITU B773 18DEC09

Travelling with the whole family. We got 2 upgraded J seats but I lost the draw and ended up sitting in Y. Seat pitch is about 32" with seat back AVOD. On international flights AC handed out free ear plug type headsets that are sold for $3 in domestic flights. AC now switched the AVOD on before push back. Surprisingly the map worked until we were over Russian Far East. The plane position on the global map was stuck at Russian Far East but the detail map was showing the correct position. Drinks were offered after reaching cruising altitude, then follow by a meal. Standard Y class meal offering but it seems the portion is getting smaller. All beverages are free. FA came around every hour offering water. Another meal was served some where over Beijing about 7 hours after the first meal. Water was offered every hour. Baskets of packaged snacks and cookies are placed outside the galley for passengers to help themselves. About 2 hours before landing, a snack of cup noodle and roast beef sandwich was offered. I like this meal-meal-snack service as the flight arrives HKG near dinner time. A light snack before landing give me a chance to enjoy a real dinner on terra firma. Watched 4 movies and only a few cat naps for the whole 14 hours trip.

Our flight path was mainly over land. From Vancouver, north to Whitehorse, over Alaska, crossing Berling Sea to Russian Far East, enter China, over Harbin, Beijing, Wuhan and south to Hong Kong.

Our priority tagged luggage arrived at the luggage claim before we do.

Xiamen Airlines MF8002 HKG-XMN B-5318 B738 25DEC09

The flight was 3.5 hours late arriving from XMN. Upon check in, each passenger was given a HKD$75 meal coupon. We were further delayed in departing by another 40 minutes as 5 passengers did not show up. They finally showed up with their 2 hands holding 2 large shopping bags of stuff. Gee these new riches are sure arrogant. We actually took off the following day, 26DEC, at 0015hr. This was a short 55 minutes flight that lasted 2 days. Video entertainment is from overhead flip down LCD monitors showing half news/travel documentary and half advertisement. Audio, all Chinese music channels. After turning off the seat belt sign, the FAs come around handing out a box of snack (a Chinese bun, a packaged of fruit and a package of some kind of preserved Chinese vegetable) and followed with drinks. FAs came back for second serve of drinks and then quickly cleanup for landing. We were the last flight arriving XMN and yours truly was the last pax to clear customs. As soon as your truly passed through customs, they turned off all lights and close the place down.

Xiamen Airlines MF8001 XMN-HKG B-2866 B752 28DEC09

This B752 fitted with 3 cabins but Y class seats are installed in the front cabin making the whole plane one class seating. Departure was actually 5 minutes early this time. In flight experience was similar to the last MF B738 flight. Since this flight departed at 1800hr, a box of bacon fried rice was served in addition to the boxed snack.

[King F. Hui]

HKG is a great place to spot planes as there are so many different airlines from Asia, America, Africa and Europe serving this airport.

HKG home based airlines are: Cathay Pacific, Dragonair, Hong Kong Airlines, Hong Kong Express, Air Hong Kong (cargo only).

Most commonly spotted planes are from Cathay Pacific, Dragonair and China Eastern. HKG is also an air cargo hub, therefore, cargo planes from around the world are spotted here too.

The best location to spot planes is the Sky Deck accessible from the Aviation Discovery Centre at Terminal 2 with a HKD$15 entrance fee.

The air in Hong Kong is always smoggy. Even on a sunny day, the sky is still "cloudy". There are very rare clear blue sky days in summer when the wind is blowing from the south over the ocean. However, those days will be unbearable (very hot, burning sun and high humidity at 99% RH).

Screeners: please don't reject photos from HKG as "cloudy with no sun". In fact, it was really a sunny day. In real life, it can be worse (because of thick smog) than what it appears on the photos. Thank Photoshop we can have a few quality photos to upload.

[Henry Tenby]

A common aircraft photographed in cloudy weather should not be uploaded to this website.

Uploading common aircraft shot in cloudy conditions wastes everyone's time so please refrain from uploading them.

I want this website to be a showcase of high quality photography. That means we wait for nice and sunny days to take our photos for this website.

Henry Tenby, webmaster
www.AirlineFan.com