Hi all,
Early last year, Oxford Aviation Group set about planning a trip to China. The spirit of this trip was to see as much Chinese aviation heritage, past and present as we could. This meant spending a lot of hours at top airport hotels to get the airliners and business jets, but we also planned to visit as many museums and technical school collections as we could.
The top item on my agenda was to visit the Airshow China held at Zhuhai every two years. That would give us the general and military aviation aspect that seems hard to come by in China. There didn’t seem to be any general aviation fields anywhere near the cities we decided to visit and we decided against going to military bases to spot from outside as we all wanted to be able to go home at the end of our two weeks.
So the trip planning started and was built around an amazing £380 Air China return ticket from Heathrow to Shanghai via Beijing. This would give us flights in Boeing 747-8, 777 and 787 types. We were happy about the 787 as Qatar had let us down on that during our visit to Dubai in 2015. Our other internal flights were to be with Shanghai Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and finally Spring Airlines all of which were booked through Ctrip.com.
All hotels were booked through two of four websites that we looked at, namely Agoda & Ctrip. Expedia and Elong were also constantly checked for price comparison but the former two websites always gave better price options on the hotels if you factored in free cancellation and breakfasts.
At this point I must thank all those people who have been to China
previously and posted information online so as to help others. It helped massively in deciding which hotels to use. None of us wanted to go for the cheap option and potentially miss stuff. Indeed I have personally been in touch with some of these contributors and already thanked them, but I take the opportunity to do it again here – I won’t name you as you know who you are!
So anyhow, our group met up in Abingdon and off we went on the short journey to Heathrow where we logged the following.
4R-ALQ, Airbus A330-343X, SriLankan Airlines (1687)
9K-APD, Airbus A330-243, Kuwait Airways (1678)
9V-SWU, Boeing 777-312ER, Singapore Airlines (42235)
A4O-DD, Airbus A330-343X, Oman Air (1063)
A6-APH, Airbus A380-861, Etihad Airways (199)
A6-EDW, Airbus A380-861, Emirates Airline (103)
A6-EES, Airbus A380-861, Emirates Airline (140)
A6-EUD, Airbus A380-861, Emirates Airline (216)
A7-AEH, Airbus A330-302, Qatar Airways (0789)
A7-BAI, Boeing 777-3DZER, Qatar Airways (36095)
A7-BCU, Boeing 787-8, Qatar Airways (39339)
A9C-KC, Airbus A330-243, Gulf Air (0286)
B-16711, Boeing 777-35EER, EVA Air (33754)
B-2031, Boeing 777-39LER, Air China (38670)
B-5962, Airbus A330-243, China Eastern Airlines (1588)
B-6113, Airbus A330-243, Air China (0890)
B-KQR, Boeing 777-367ER, Cathay Pacific Airlines (41759)
B-LIC, Boeing 747-467ERF, Cathay Pacific Airways (36868)
CS-TNT, Airbus A320-214, TAP Air Portugal (4095)
D-AIBB, Airbus A319-114, Lufthansa (4182)
D-AILW, Airbus A319-114, Lufthansa (0853)
D-AIUH, Airbus A320-214, Lufthansa (6225)
EI-DSU, Airbus A320-216, Air One (3563)
EI-DTF, Airbus A320-216, Alitalia (3906)
EI-DTH, Airbus A320-216, Alitalia (3956)
ET-ATQ, Airbus A350-941, Ethiopian Airlines (040)
F-HEPE, Airbus A320-214, Air France (4298)
HB-IJM, Airbus A320-214, Swissair (0635)
HL7615, Airbus A380-861, Korean Air (075)
HL8284, Boeing 777-28EER, Asiana Airlines (40199)
HZ-AK30, Boeing 777-368ER, Saudi Arabian Airlines (42268)
LN-RGI, Boeing 737-86N, Scandinavian Airlines System (35646)
N780AV, Boeing 787-8, Avianca (37502)
OY-JTY, Boeing 737-7Q8, Jet Time (30727)
OY-KAY, Airbus A320-232, Scandinavian Airlines System (2856)
PT-MUG, Boeing 777-32WER, TAM Linhas Aéreas (38888)
SE-RJE, Airbus A320-232, Scandinavian Airlines System (1183)
SP-LRF, Boeing 787-8, LOT Polish Airlines (35942)
SU-GDY, Boeing 737-866, EgyptAir (40758)
SX-DNE, Airbus A320-232, Aegean Airlines (7014)
SX-DVZ, Airbus A321-231, Aegean Airlines (3820)
T7-MRC, Airbus A320-214, Middle East Airlines (5253)
TC-JSR, Airbus A321-231, Turkish Airlines (6652)
TC-JSU, Airbus A321-231, Turkish Airlines (6709)
VP-BBS, Boeing 787-8, Azerbaijan Airlines (37921)
VP-BLX, Airbus A330-243, Aeroflot Russian Airlines (0963)
VT-ANP, Boeing 787-8, Air India (36287)
VT-JES, Boeing 777-35RER, Jet Airways (35159)
ZS-SXZ, Airbus A330-243, South African Airways (1191)
B-6113, Airbus A330-243 of Air China was to be our stead for the long flight to Beijing/Capital………departing as CCA856 after 10pm and arriving at Beijing 10 hours later on Monday 24th.
Regards,
Grant Robinson
Oxford Aviation Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/139252716488773/