[飛行報告]
[Flight Report] Hong Kong Express Charter to Dunhuang
[複製鏈接]
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October is a great time to travel in north Asia. The temperatures have fallen, the sun is out, and threat of typhoons drops off dramatically. My friends have gone exotic lately, heading to the likes of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan to see the Silk Road. I opted for a more conservative option - China's Silk Road in Gansu and Xinjiang. The 8-day trip would just scratch the surface as I wouldn't deep dive into the really beautiful parts of Xinjiang. That would deserve another trip.
Getting there used to be a pain involving a transfer in Beijing or Shanghai, and possibly getting stuck due to persistent delays and air traffic flow controls. Recently, Hong Kong Express began chartered flights to Dunhuang in Gansu. It is not available for purchase by DIY tourists, so I joined a package tour to make this whole journey relatively hassle-free.
There were dedicated counters at Terminal 2 for group passengers, which was quite crowded but the lines moved steadily.
Today's flight would depart from the new satellite concourse, where I spotted Hong Kong Airlines' new A350.
We ended up boarding by bus, and it was a full flight occupied by 4 travel agencies.
The flight time was announced at about 5 hours. That surprised many passengers. I did some research beforehand on this. While Dunhuang is about the same distance away as Nagoya, our flight path would not be a direct line, but go north to almost Beijing, then veer west to Dunhuang. Being stuck for so long in a cramped seat was not very appetizing. My knees were already touching the seat in front of me.
My travel agency included 20kg of checked baggage and a meal for the flight. The crew were busy checking the passenger lists to make sure they distribute the Evian water and the pork chop rice to the correct people. The rice was not too big and did not taste too nice. Low-cost carriers I suppose.
I heard later that one of the groups did not provide the free meal, hence the paperwork.
While flight deck announced light to moderate turbulence, the first half of the journey northwards was relatively smooth. The clouds rolled in beneath us as we headed west towards Gansu, and the seat belt sign came on and off for quite some time during the last stretches. I had thought this part of China is dry and sunny at this time of year, but all this cleared on final approach as we were met by a beautiful sun on landing.
A bit bored with no IFE and a long flight time, I scanned around the literature for some inspiration.
Now is a great time to see fall colours in Japan and Korea.
Wish they had some local Hong Kong snacks for purchase on board.
The airline's fleet is simple with only a few types of narrowbody planes. The destination list was not up-to-date as today's Dunhuang charter flight is not included. The crew also announced we could claim Reward U miles after the fact but a subsequent email discussion with customer service confirmed charter flights are not eligible to earn any mileage.
Dunhuang is a small town surrounded by the desert. The domestic terminal is new and looks quite nice, but our international flight would park at a small building far from it. When the staircase was attached and the doors opened, they had to slowly let small groups of passengers into the terminal as there wasn't enough space for everyone to line up for the 2 immigration counters.
During the long wait to disembark, I took a few more photos of the cramped seats where my knee would touch the seat ahead of me.
There are no baggage carousels here. The luggage would come in through the side door and get deposited in front of the check-in counters. Then head to the X-ray, and out the door to the buses. Unfortunately, my luggage did not make it to Dunhuang, and I later overheard the guide say 50 luggages were not loaded. For a full flight of about 180 passengers, that is almost 1 in 3. Ain't that great. There was an airport staff with the forms already with a big crowd surrounding him. He asked where I would be for the next 2 days and marked something down on the property irregularity report. I was reassured we would stop at the night market that evening to do some shopping as it was expected to get quite cold. My winter gear were all in my large suitcase. Getting to the Silk Road has gotten a lot easier with this chartered flight, but not having my luggage arrive with me was a great hassle, and eventually I got it back on day 3. It went a long way - through Kunming and Lanzhou, since this charter only flies once a week.
More photos from the flight on my website : https://www.globalphotos.org/uo-dunhuang.htm
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How long ago was this flight report from? As I know UO's HKG - DNH charter has been long cancelled, as some of the flights were ops with only <10 pax. |
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Are you sure?I don’t know much about it, but I am still able to find UO2992’s information on HKIA’s website.
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我用flightradar24睇返flight path，真係唔明白佢點解唔經成都飛上去。
深圳直航新疆烏魯木齊都只係5個鐘左右，佢就係經成都，之後西寧咁樣穿上去。 |
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This is a seasonal flight and they don't fly the charter during the winter low season. I flew on Oct 9, 2017.
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其實我覺得佢原本係想經停北京先再去敦煌，不過首都機場要疏解航班唔批佢落 |
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簽名被屏蔽
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唔關PEK事，佢今年都有飛，大致上走線係武漢，鄭州，大原，銀川，連石家莊都無經，咁o既flight route坐滿180個pax的話，唔減載行李都幾難
UO2992 flight log (fr flightradar24)
HU7744 SZC -> URC flightlog (fr flightradar24)
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睇返HU7744 flight path，佢其實都唔會飛過西藏高原，佢係經四川北部、蘭州，之後就左轉向新疆飛，呢條flightpath亦係香港去歐洲常用航線之一。
真正高山我只會話四川北部果堆，但比係四川西部真係唔算高了
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據說系外籍機師可以飛的航路比國內機師可以飛的航路要少得多。 |
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