Posts from an Australian lost in the Middle Kingdom
Reviews, tips and guides on flights within, and in and out of China.
Here is a collection of photos of the new Beijing Daxing International Airport, aka Starfish. As of late last month it has slowly been receiving domestic and now international flights. Nanyuan airport has now closed as a public airport with Beijing now serviced by the Beijing Capital Airport and the new airport at Daxing.
Ctrip has hot deals with the airline Nokscoot including flying from China to Bangkok
Fancy a flight from Shanghai to an island paradise for 9RMB? Welcome to the new wave of budget airline carriers opening up in China that’s smashing airline travel costs.
Here’s a list of domestic and international airports in China, grouped by province, linking to the airports website where available. Many of China’s airport websites have an English version featuring useful guides on airport transfers and procedure guides for arrivals and departures. Also see Booking flights in China
If your’e hunting for discount flights between China and Australia, read on. This post features some of the tips and tricks I’ve discovered, plus links to great sites for flight deals between Australia and China.
My personal experience with local Chinese airline companies has been mostly good, the planes are clean, in many cases new, the service is good, and my inability to speak Chinese has never been an issue. All the flights I’ve been on have had staff with English skills, and any messages are broadcast in both languages at a minimum.
I chose to fly from Shanghai to Shenzhen and booked my flight via elong.com website. The service via the website is pretty good once your booking is finalised you receive a SMS confirmation and also an email confirmation. You simply show your passport at check-in and receive your boarding pass.
I really wanted to make this trip via train, but it seemed difficult to book a ticket on short notice, plus the extremely helpfull staff at the Traffic Hotel in Chengdu where pretty keen to suggest the plane was going to be the best option.
Lijiang Airport is pretty simple, after check-in and security check you either walk to the waiting room on the left or right depending on your departure gate number. The waiting rooms have toilets, one shop, and seats although probably not enough.
I booked this flight through the airline booking service at the Tibet Hotel Chengdu. I booked it at the last minute so I’m quite sure that I paid through the nose for this flight at 790rmb for an economy seat. I think if you booked with elong or ctrip in advance you could probably get a flight for half that price.
Choosing an airline was quite easy as Air Asia was by far the cheapest airline to get into China from Australia. At the time, Air Asia was under a third of the cost of the other airlines going in that direction.