ZPPP/KMG - Kunming - Best Yue Hang Hotel - May 2019

Kunming is another new, vast airport and is the home of Kunming Airlines, Lucky Air, Riuli Air, and the Yunnan division of China Eastern. There are a lot of China Eastern here I have never seen in other places in China – I actually think I did them a disservice and need longer here to pick them all up.  There is also a small base for Sichuan Airlines, and reasonable operations from Air Travel (formerly Hongtu Airlines) and Okay Airways.  The seven Max8s are parked in a row remote from the terminal, and remote parking, as is usually the case in China, goes on forever.  As with much of China the based carriers do lots of non-based flying…..
 
I stayed in the Best Yue Hang hotel, which is the only hotel at Kunming Airport.  There’s a shuttle bus from the far side of the arrivals level outside door 3, though the hotel’s website doesn’t tell you that!  It looked like it was every 30 minutes at xx10 and xx40 from the airport.  It is walkable if you know where you’re going (arrivals level, turn right, past the coach station, down a short set of steps , and keep walking through that car park and the following bus park).  The hotel is a typically extravagant Chinese hotel where demand is not what they expected so lots of cost saving measures such as no restaurants, air con turned off etc.  The toilet and shower cubicle were both glass sides and faced in to the room with no other doors! Each had a shower curtain but far from sufficient to protect modesty.  Pay for individual rooms here, higher even numbers for the airport/runway view.
Kunming was also quite pleasant to spot from airside, despite being typically huge.  We sat out a 90 minute undefined delay on board Shenzhen Airlines’ B-1771, and for  the first time in my life had an in-flight meal served to me on the ground.  The Shenzhen log is what I saw from the walk to baggage reclaim,  Shenzhen has a horrible patterned structure on the outside which makes seeing out windows tricky.  Shenzhen, like Kunming, is an airport worthy of returning to. 

ZUXK/CKG - Chongqing - Rica Hotel - May 2019

Next stop was Chongqing, Sichuan Province.  There is effectively a town centre opposite Terminal 2, where the Rica Hotel overlooks the airport.  When booking on Trip.com it usually tells you which types of room are on which floors which helps immensely in booking the right type of room to get a [high floor] view.  The Rica was no different.  I had a room on the top floor which is the 10^th. Odd numbers required for a view, ending 01-17 overlook the approach and runway ends and higher look over the airfield. I had 1001, which was a huge room, and leaning our the window could see traffic using the far runway (03L/21R). Note that a lot of on-line information doesn’t show Terminal 3 or the new runway, 03L/21R – but these massively change the layout and operation of the airfield).  There is a Days Inn which probably has a similar view.
 
Previous reports mention difficulty accessing the hotels at CKG.  This has now all changed with the construction of the metro, where a new huge metro station, built underground, spans across from terminal 2 to Bingang Road where the hotels are.  Just follow signs for exit 7, Bingang Road is behind you, the Days Inn is right there and the Rica is five minutes’ walk to the right.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/V6dkDZuMxeugALyj7 Note locations in china are often inaccurate.

 

XIY/ZLXY - Xi'an - Regal Airport Hotel - May 2019

 Xi’an is quite an interesting airport with a lot of variety, particularly a lot of one or twice a day flights from carriers such as Hebei and Urumqi, as well as assorted operations from the Hainan group carriers: Air Changan are based, Tianjin have 8-9 different E190s a day, and both Tianjin and Capital operate their Airbus single aisles: GX Airlines and Lucky Air also visit.  Hainan themselves have a few 737 flights and 3-4 A330s a day.

 

When planning this trip I made extensive use of the advice offered on this website: https://globalspotting.wixsite.com/global-spotting/china-.  At Xi’an the Regal Airport hotel (same company as HKG) is linked directly to terminal 3 and terminal 3 is linked to Terminal 2 used by Air China and Hainan group).  Terminal 1 looks like a disused prison and handles the occasional Spring flight. The whole airport layout is quite odd, as it’s effectively locked in by roads and taxiways, a little bit like Luton except bigger.  There are parallel runways at Xi’an, low numbered rooms in the Regal will look at either of these (odd numbers facing the northern runway/Hainan side, and even numbers facing the southern runway/China Eastern side).   Higher even numbers face out towards the approach to the 05s, however the threshold of 05L cannot be seen, and there is nowhere within the hotel to be able to see this from. However the end or 05R can be seen, as well as some remote parking. 

 

The presence of eleven stored ex-Hainan/Grand China Express Dornier 328 Jets was one of the attractions of Xi’an ….. and my attempts to see them were thwarted.  I started on foot, and kept walking around the inside of the airfield until I met a building site, and the only way round was on the motorway to the airport.  I suspect the Chinese would just have kept going but my interest in walking on motorway flyovers was non-existent.  I then tried a succession of taxis outside the hotel with my best Bing Translate (Google is blocked in China) description of where I wanted to go, and just got variations of ‘no’ as an answer.  My impression was they didn’t want to go where I wanted to go. 

 

When I left Xi’an I thankfully had a window seat on the correct side to see the storage area, as well as eleven DoJets there were single examples of a Tainjin Em145 (known) and Em190 (not known) as well as four Capital A319/320 (not known, but I haven’t attempted to work them out yet) as well as  Fuzhou 737Max8.  I can send a photo if anyone wants one.  In addition on arrival I saw Capital A319 B-6108 all taped & bagged up, and there are two Hainan DoJets and two Em145s in a compound overlooked by the Regal Hotel.