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Discussion
Hi,
We recently flew to the Philippines (some pics to follow some might find interesting, hopefully). Our departure from LHR was delayed about an hour, the reason the Captain gave was that "China had decided to close some of the airspace on our route", hence we needed to take on some more fuel and obtain some more paperwork.
Couple of questions, one being why would China decide to do this, and secondly, what would happen if they had decided to close the airspace while we were in mid flight?, Would there needed to have been an unscheduled stop?.
The Carrier was Cathay, who were brilliant, even though we traveled "Chickens and hens class" it was a good flight both ways, on time (made some up on the way somehow) and the crews were fantastic.
We recently flew to the Philippines (some pics to follow some might find interesting, hopefully). Our departure from LHR was delayed about an hour, the reason the Captain gave was that "China had decided to close some of the airspace on our route", hence we needed to take on some more fuel and obtain some more paperwork.
Couple of questions, one being why would China decide to do this, and secondly, what would happen if they had decided to close the airspace while we were in mid flight?, Would there needed to have been an unscheduled stop?.
The Carrier was Cathay, who were brilliant, even though we traveled "Chickens and hens class" it was a good flight both ways, on time (made some up on the way somehow) and the crews were fantastic.
texaxile said:
Hi,
We recently flew to the Philippines (some pics to follow some might find interesting, hopefully). Our departure from LHR was delayed about an hour, the reason the Captain gave was that "China had decided to close some of the airspace on our route", hence we needed to take on some more fuel and obtain some more paperwork.
Couple of questions, one being why would China decide to do this, and secondly, what would happen if they had decided to close the airspace while we were in mid flight?, Would there needed to have been an unscheduled stop?.
The Carrier was Cathay, who were brilliant, even though we traveled "Chickens and hens class" it was a good flight both ways, on time (made some up on the way somehow) and the crews were fantastic.
Funny an identical thing happened to me last year coming back from Manila !We recently flew to the Philippines (some pics to follow some might find interesting, hopefully). Our departure from LHR was delayed about an hour, the reason the Captain gave was that "China had decided to close some of the airspace on our route", hence we needed to take on some more fuel and obtain some more paperwork.
Couple of questions, one being why would China decide to do this, and secondly, what would happen if they had decided to close the airspace while we were in mid flight?, Would there needed to have been an unscheduled stop?.
The Carrier was Cathay, who were brilliant, even though we traveled "Chickens and hens class" it was a good flight both ways, on time (made some up on the way somehow) and the crews were fantastic.
We were delayed going to Hong Kong due to the tail end of a typhoon and missen my connection to Amsterdam, however was rebooked onto a Cathay flight to Paris . We were delayed by 1.hour due to additional paper work as the pilot explained that China had closed some of its airspace and we would have to take a longer route home - apparently happens quite often.
I fly to Manila quite often for work but perhaps because other airlines (usually Emirates) take a slightly more southerly route they are not impacted by these airspace closures.
China is a right pain in the ass to fly through!!!
The military control so much of the airspace and bottleneck all commercial traffic into fewer commercial airways causing serious headaches for many of the commercial carriers.
They are a law unto themselves and I'm not wrong in saying that if flying out of china and your on a non Chinese carrier and there's a queue of local carriers departing too, you WILL but put at the back of the queue for departure.
The way the ATC at Pudong control aircraft is farcical and if any of them visited a proper international airport they'd be made a laughing stock
Saying that Singapore is 'very' obvious too it it's favouritism towards their local airline delaying non local airlines during arrivals & departures.
The military control so much of the airspace and bottleneck all commercial traffic into fewer commercial airways causing serious headaches for many of the commercial carriers.
They are a law unto themselves and I'm not wrong in saying that if flying out of china and your on a non Chinese carrier and there's a queue of local carriers departing too, you WILL but put at the back of the queue for departure.
The way the ATC at Pudong control aircraft is farcical and if any of them visited a proper international airport they'd be made a laughing stock
Saying that Singapore is 'very' obvious too it it's favouritism towards their local airline delaying non local airlines during arrivals & departures.
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