China Southern cabin crew. Photo / Supplied
Glenn Hart flies aboard China Southern CZ3553 from Shenzhen to Shanghai.
The plane: Airbus A330-300.
Class: Economy.
Flight time: It was a 1hr 50m flight and we were 1hr 10m late to leave.
My seat: 39C.
Fellow passengers: Members of the Huawei orientation team.
How full: Full.
Entertainment: Hard to describe exactly. There were old-style screens at the front of each row of seats showing ... showing ... some kind of documentary series about advances in Chinese infrastructure and housing. I figured this out from the English subtitles — handy because there were no headphones supplied. This ain't Netflix, that's for sure.
The service: The staff members were immaculately turned out and there were certainly plenty of them. Although they didn't speak much English, they made every effort to keep us informed of our food and drinks options as clearly as possible.
Food and drink: A choice of lunch boxes; dim sum or beef noodles, with a selection of unidentifiable juices and soft drinks. I went with the noodles, which were delicious because they tasted like spaghetti bolognaise. Also in the box were a banana and a suspicious pottle of black-green jelly that listed "tortoise" in the ingredients.
The toilets: Not sure, as the "occupied" sign seemed to be on for the entire flight. Glad I didn't need to go.
The airport experience: Shenzhen Airport is new, sparkling and absolutely massive. I've been to big terminals before (Hong Kong is a great example) but due to a slightly late arrival, we really had to hustle through to meet our boarding deadline, potentially challenging given the obvious language barrier. In saying that, many of the staff, from check-in to security seemed to have some English and everything was very efficient. Be warned, security checks are thorough, even for domestic flights. Some members of our party were delayed for suspicious items in luggage that turned out to be not very suspicious. This led to an uncomfortable walk-run to Gate 37 — about 1.5km away (I'm not even joking) — just in time for the announcement our flight had been delayed indefinitely. No one seemed surprised, just resigned. It was only an hour later that we were asked to board. We arrived at Hongqiao, the more domestic-focused and older of Shanghai's two major airports. Although it's showing its age a little, exiting the plane, claiming baggage and getting to the carpark was an efficient, painless operation. Getting out of the car park and into Shanghai's traffic was another story.
The bottomline: I was expecting much worse. Although the China Southern experience was a basic one, it wasn't unpleasant or even remotely sloppy. The crew were friendly and we arrived well fed and in one piece.
When there's nothing as far as the eye can see, you may appreciate the company.