Background
This trip was conceived with a booking made 14 months ago with a single flight on AirAsia X from Xian to Kuala Lumpur to use up vouchers that were issued during the pandemic when the airline was went belly-up pending revival.
Over the months, I slowly built up an itinerary to include places that I’ve always wanted to visit, namely Zhangjiajie, and added other places that would be new.
Late last year, some friends showed interest in joining me and eventually, four confirmed. We have KL & M joining from Hamilton, and E & BW from Singapore. We are all Malaysian or Malaysian-born and have studied in Christchurch.
Some of us went to the same kindergarten, primary and secondary schools as well!
Departing Auckland
I got dropped off at Auckland Airport over 3h before the 2145 Hainan Airlines flight to Haikou. It took about 30 minutes to get from the end of the long queue to the desk. There were placards in the queue offering upgrades from Economy to Business class, priced at NZD1100 to 1430, depending on one’s original ticket.
Once at the desk, everything was handled quickly and they didn’t even ask to see my ticket leaving China that was booked separately on another airline.
Unlike last year, the airline was able to tag my bag (and also issue the second boarding pass) all the way to my domestic destination Wuhan without having to collect and re-check it at Haikou.
Passport control and security was a dream today and I was at the lounge an hour after being dropped off.
KL & M were in the check-in queue a little behind me so we finally had a nice catch-up in the lounge. Apart from one lunch a few years ago, we hadn’t seen each other for more than 35 years.
Our B787 was very full tonight. We closed up about 10 mins early and departed on time. The crew remained seated till 30000 ft before starting a supper service.
Hainan Airlines is still as classy as I remember from last year. There was a printed menu even in Economy Class and three non-vegetarian options of hot mains were offered. The service-flow was flawed with no drinks or water being served and none preset onto the tray.
They did do a bar service once meals were distributed and followed up with repeats.
The menu listed a nice range of fairly good quality snacks for in-between meals. I did try some last year but wasn’t hungry enough this time around.