How was breakfast on a Chinese domestic Hainan flight? The answer, not bad at all. For this week’s Meal of the Week I recall a hearty breakfast on an early morning flight.
Hainan is considered one of the better if not the best Chinese carrier. I booked this flight, however, due to price and time rather than due to carrier. As an aside, I cannot figure out the Chinese domestic market. Certainly the carriers you expect to operate flights out of their hubs do so, but it seems liked every major Chinese carrier operated this route.
Anyway, the 792-mile, 2hr15min flight left before sunrise. I skipped breakfast at the hotel and in the lounge, but was still full from the late-night street food the previous day.
After takeoff, passengers were offered fish or egg. I chose egg and received the following–
Inside the box was crackers and an orange. Inside the serving container was scrambled eggs mixed with white rice, peas, and carrots. This was not traditional breakfast egg fried rice: the rice was not fried.
While this was not a breakfast I would ever eat in a hotel, lounge, or restaurant, I appreciated the nourishment on a short flight.
More importantly, this flight helps to dispel the sort of horror stories you sometimes hear about on Chinese domestic flights. Service was efficient and courteous, drinks were refilled, and the complimentary meal was perfectly adequate. Not all Chinese airlines are created equal, but I cannot imagine an instance in which a domestic Chinese flight would be much worse than a domestic flight in the USA.
It is certainly better than the food you would get on an Air Canada flight this length, which would be NOTHING! What was the route? I would guess something either out of PEK or PVG for multiple airlines to fly it and to some other somewhat major Chinese city. Maybe XIY or CKG?
Quite agree that we have been trained to fear the Chinese airlines, but that actual experience flying on them usually begs to differ. I recently flew TPE-PVG one-way and on short notice, and was looking at an expensive fare on the several major carriers on the route. I paid about one-third of the prevailing rate on Chinese low cost carrier Spring Air, figuring that I would be signing up for a difficult adventure, but rationalizing it based upon the short flight time and significant savings. The short of it was that it was perfectly fine, even nice, and the flight attendants could not have been friendlier to the lone westerner on board. My experiences on the larger Chinese carriers have been quite decent as well, and planning on flying the new Hainan nonstop JFK-Chongqing when the route opens in October instead of my customary stop in HKG on CX.
Hainan is nothing like the BIG3 (MU,CA, China southern ). They are a quality airline. Maybe not super fancy but always good food and service
Hainan is kinda like jetBlue in the US
Hainan is getting fancy with the new couture uniform. So pretty. Oh, and Kung Fu Panda livery!
Yes. And Wang Qishan and all the shadow shareholders of Hainan thank you.
That cannot be called food. That is just a glob of empty carbs with all ingredients tainted by loads of pesticides. I’d rather they gave out nothing because growing and consuming that further damages our environment. And the worst part of domestic Chinese carrier is not the food, but all your fellow passengers who are uncivilized and selfish.
You must be fun at parties.
Ken Y – that wasn’t necessary.
You know nothing about the agricultural and food production industries in China. I work in it. Enjoy eating DDT along with those poor souls among the masses in PRC.
I meant the “uncivilized and selfish” part.
Right. As a tourist you might have overlooked or might not have been conscious of these behaviors – so I forgive you. Just go to Japan after spending significant amount of time in the PRC for a drastic contrast.
If the fellow passenger didn’t bother me at all why would anyone care if they are uncivilized and selfish?
The vast majority of them behave in an uncivilized and selfish manner and there are 1,500,000,000 of them. I fly several times a month in China domestically – sometimes in F, sometimes in Y. In the latter, you’re trapped in close quarters – you don’t think you’d be bothered? Good luck.
It’s pathetic how the U.S. airlines are treating passengers like third class citizens.
So the US airlines all use organic ingredients? Good to know.
This was meant for the thread above. Oops!
Was this XIY to PVG?