[Flight Report] Hong Kong - Tel Aviv

10 years ago, I did an around the world on UA and AA mileage[/url] routing from Hong Kong to Toronto via Bangkok and Frankfurt. Although Hong Kong has dropped its designated hotel quarantine requirement since I last flew during the summer, the road to recovery for our aviation sector is still in its infancy. Airline schedules are nowhere near pre-pandemic levels, compared to Europe and North America where normal seems within reach. Hence, getting a round-the-world itinerary would either come with a huge price tag or an impossible redemption.

I set my eyes on getting to the UK and Canada on this trip for Christmas and New Year. However, flights to London and Toronto remain elusive. Cathay has restarted more than a single daily flight to Heathrow, while Virgin has given up and BA only resumed flying in early December. Transpacific would be much more difficult, with Air Canada only flying to Vancouver and Cathay flying to Toronto a few times a week, as opposed to twice daily back in the good old days.

Given the round-the-world ambition, I can't rely on last minute redemptions anymore as I could get stuck somewhere along the way. By late October, I knew I needed to act to get my early Christmas vacation going. Cathay wasn't releasing their Heathrow flights for redemption, and finding another European port of entry for a 1-stop wasn't successful either. The only place where I saw availability was Tel Aviv, which fell into a cheaper distance band than Europe. From there, BA had 2 daily flights and an easy and cheap redemption to go the rest of the way.

The most difficult part would be getting back to Hong Kong. With a 17 hour flight time due to avoiding Russian airspace, I needed a bit more comfort and space and had enough Asia Miles to redeem Premium Economy. However, Cathay has always been stingy in releasing seats for redemption, and in past years I've done very last minute itineraries because of this. Without this last building block in place, I may have to end up paying a fortune to redeem using Aeroplan.

Luckily, after a few days of continuously refreshing my search, the Toronto-HK flight opened up with a few redemption seats over the Chinese New Year period. I was now all set to book everything, albeit backwards. This was late October.



I had a sprinkle of mileage across a number of oneworld programs. It's not enough to redeem everything under a single program, so I had to plan very carefully to get these 4 flights ticketed. The best value of points was 60k for leg 4, Toronto-HK, in Premium Economy, which pretty much clears out my Asia Miles account. The BA flights for legs 2 and 3 were easily redeemed using Avios. I had some orphaned AA mileage to use to redeem leg 1 to Tel Aviv on Cathay metal, which had less surcharges than redeeming through Asia Miles.

10 December - Hong Kong Airport

The Tel Aviv flight is among the last few of the day, leaving at 1:30am. As a sign that Hong Kong is not really back on the aviation map, my airport bus doesn't run past 8pm, so I had to take the Airport Express, which had also gotten rid of the connecting taxi half fare discount from before the pandemic.

Tsing Yi station was eeringly empty. I was the only one in the station when I arrived, although a few more pulled up shortly before the train arrived. The train was quite empty as well, and my carriage only had 1 other person in it.





The airport was also eeringly quiet at that late hour, and there was nobody else in line at the premium check-in aisle. With separate PNRs to Israel and onwards to London, I asked if they could interline given the same alliance. However, I was told it's not possible. I had hoped I could send the big case all the way to London as I don't need it for that one night in Tel Aviv, saving me the hassle of hauling it out of the airport and back.





The board looks a bit busier now but there are actually very few red-eyes leaving for long-haul destinations still.



Air-side, the shops were closed and there was barely anyone in the food court, pretty much the same as my last visit.





As part of the COVID restrictions still in place across Hong Kong, visitors to restaurants need to scan their virus app to track their whereabouts, although the government seems to have forgotten to use the data to track close contacts as COVID continues to spread across the community.







The airport has changed a lot more since summer. A new sky bridge just opened connecting to the North Satellite Terminal. I took the escalators up to see for myself, although with darkness outside, there wasn't much in terms of view.



















Tonight's flight would be at gate 50, at the far end of one of the wings. As I walked along the length of the terminal, I noticed more improved seating and workstations. The small lounges are cozy and comfortable to relax while the computer workstation spaces also look good.











Next up - CX 675 to Tel Aviv

More photos on my website :  https://www.globalphotos.org/2022rtw.htm

I just saw an airport ground tour instead of flight report
nothing seen regarding your trip even the plane or the boarding gate.
How amazing......

currypig 發表於 2023-1-1 10:53
I just saw an airport ground tour instead of flight report
nothing seen regarding your trip even the ...

Go to th link

小弟上年六月時坐過呢班機去以色列，去程時全機得三十人左右...
想用就過期的Asiamiles黎upgrade去premium econ都唔得，但回程check-in時就免費升左上去

回程係八月的事，全機爆滿
已經提早了四個小時到機場，搞一大輪後去到預定起飛時間前15分鐘先入到禁區
聽到機上有唔少人都係喺歐洲過黎，再搭飛機番香港

以色列機場入禁區前的安檢做得非常嚴格
幾乎係一對一有專人招呼你，先用人手檢查袋內的所有物品，對部分物品進行swab test，然後先再用x-ray scan

swab test我記得喺香港上登機橋前都要做，但只係隨機性質

currypig 發表於 2023-1-1 10:53
I just saw an airport ground tour instead of flight report
nothing seen regarding your trip even the ...

You didn't read the "next up" at the end.

Tonight's flight would depart at Gate 50, at the end of one of the Y-pier legs.

A lot of people had snaked out of the gate, although several staff were on hand to direct the crowds, including where I should go for the Premium Economy line to avoid the Air Canada-style boarding chaos. Passengers fumbled a bit at the new automated entry gates, which only require taking off your mask and looking at the camera to let you through. You don't even need to flash your boarding pass at all. However, I didn't think technology has made boarding faster.

To give credit to the staff, there were more of them on hand than similar departures I've gone through pre-pandemic. There were a number of these gates so they moved the people across to use them all during priority and regular boarding to keep the flow going. By adding more staff to manage automation seems to defeat the purpose though.



Premium Economy was fairly empty tonight with the middle 4 seats mostly empty across all the rows, and not everyone occupying the window seats either. My seatmate had moved so I had the row of 2 to myself, although it didn't help as the armrest is fixed and I couldn't stretch out any more horizontally. Legroom was great though.

The crew came by to offer pre-departure drinks and there was already a blanket and pillow at the seat, as well as a paper menu on the armrest. After take-off, they came to take our dinner orders, with many passengers opting to skip it.



e IFE, there was a good selection of Hong Kong shows, including from the other channel, ViuTV. I was surprised Young Sheldon was not available, but The Simpsons have returned, and there was also live TV.





Despite the late hour, I decided to eat dinner since it would be another 10 hours before the next meal is served.

I picked the chicken dish and it tasted quite good. It looks like Cathay has improved its food presentation. While it's not Business Class quality, it certainly looked much better than typical Economy fare, which was my complaint when I flew on this product before. Although the Haagen Daz ice-cream has been replaced by Movenpick, it's still a very good brand and tasted delicious. The metal cutlery also enhanced the experience.



After dinner, the lights dimmed and I tried to catch some sleep for this 10+ hour flight to the Middle East. The journey was smooth and I had more than enough legroom to sleep in a stretched-out slanted position. However, even with a good recline, the lack of horizontal moving space would render my sleep uncomfortable. But then, I had issues trying to sleep for long periods even in their lie-flat Business Class before, so I'm quite picky.

Breakfast orders were taken over 2 hours before arrival, with the crew coming to individually ask what we would like. No carts were used and we each got our food on the tray one-by-one from the galley, just like dinner.







fter breakfast, I peeked out and saw the sun starting to rise. The weather forecast for Tel Aviv would be sunny for the duration of my short visit.







As we neared Israel, I looked for the Dead Sea off on my left. Unfortunately, I only have a night in Israel before continuing to London, so I won't be able to make it out there this time.







I had high hopes my left window seat would offer skyline views on arrival. I was right, although the lighting was not too good yet to see the buildings too clearly. We actually passed by the skyline twice, heading past the airport and out to sea before looping back to land.











Tel Aviv's airport is only a short distance from the city so the flight path for landing from the west skirts quite close to downtown.











We landed just before the sun could peek out of the horizon.



This is my first time in Israel so the sight of many El Al planes is very interesting.













The airport looked fairly new and bright. While I had expected an interview on why I would be in Israel from reading the tourist literature due to the overall security situation, there were steps along the way which I had not expected and wished there was some signage. The first fumble was a photo booth where I had to scan my passport and get my picture taken. The result is a small ticket that would be needed for the next step. A bit of a walk after the photo booths, 2 staff checked we had that little ticket before we continued down a long corridor to immigration. A few poor souls were turned away here to go back to the booths and they left a bit baffled.







There weren't many people lining up for Immigration so I presume most passengers on the flight were Israelis, who use a different line. Surprisingly, I didn't get an interview and just got a typical question of why I'm there. A quick smile later, I was on my way. Israel doesn't stamp passports so that ticket would be proof of my arrival.

Luggage would take quite some time to come out although at this early hour, I wasn't in a hurry to head to the city. My hotel room probably wouldn't be ready anyway.



I headed out through Customs with no issues and emerged land-side. To the right side, I saw some ATMs and a still shut tourist information desk. I was looking for the transport office to get their smart card as buses no longer take cash fares. I finally spotted a vending machine and popped a 100 bill in to get a day pass costing 23 sheikels. It worked although it spat out a lot of coins, after which the machine went out of service. I guess I was the lucky last customer.





Tel Aviv's airport has its own train station attached, and it is only a 15 minute ride to the first station in the city. Although there are only 2 platforms, I couldn't decipher the local language and had to ask someone on where to go for city-bound trains. I didn't understand why the signage couldn't show some more English though.

The train line actually doesn't go into the most popular tourist parts of the city, skirting east of it along a busy highway. Most desirable hotels are along the Mediterranean coast where there are plenty of beaches. While the train ride was very quick, I would need to transfer to a bus for about half an hour westwards to reach my waterfront hotel near historic Jaffa.

More photos on my website : https://www.globalphotos.org/cx675.htm