Review of China Eastern flight from Shanghai to Taipei in Economy

This was the last segment of a round trip between Taipei and Paris via China:
TPE – PEK (Air China, 333)
PEK – CDG (Air France, 77W)
CDG – PVG (China Eastern, 332)
PVG – TPE (China Eastern, 333) YOU ARE HERE
I was checking my watch, and after spending an hour with a friend in his office overlooking People’s Square (the name of the central square in many Chinese cities), it was already time to head back to PVG, that I had left on the visa exemption rule (the conditions have been extended since that flight, but you still need to fly to and from two different countries, which precludes a round trip to Shanghai). The network of galleries under Shanghai’s People Square is as complex as its subway network, but the signage is excellent. Once past the turnstiles, there are many directions on the ground like these.

I won’t describe the trip on the Transrapid magnetic levitation train : it was like on the way in and the time slots when it travels at it maximum speed during the trip are so narrow that it was again an ordinary 301 km/h maximum trip. This would not be the time when I would increase my ground transport speed record.
Skyteam’s airlines are at Terminal 1, as well as a few others, but MU of course has the lion’s share, since Shanghai is its main hub.

The walk from the Transrapid station was all the longer that I eventually reached the domestic end of Terminal 1, which was somewhat jammed. Good thing that I already had my BP obtained in CDG, because I did not have a lot of spare time.

In politically correct Chinese parlance, flights to Taiwan are not international, but they are not domestic either.

There was a quite long wait at the immigration, and at the security check too, all the more that six passengers claiming that their flight was about to leave passed in front of me with the agreement of the staff. I was actually in a similar situation, because I took this picture at 11:59 once airside, and boarding was scheduled at 11:40. And since I did not have any checked luggage, nothing would stop the plane from leaving without me.

It was indeed the last call for Flight MU5007 to Taipei at Gate 19. Flight CI502 to Taipei, moved from Gate 19 to Gate 17, had not left yet.

In other words, it was not the right time to start a lengthy plane spotting session. Anyway, the weather had not improved since my landing 4 ½ hours earlier, as you will see.
I would not try to challenge the accuracy of the German on line agency which had sold me my ticket and announced that this last segment would be on a 346.

Once in Taipei, flightaware.com, an a website of unchallengeable accuracy confirmed that I had flow on a 346.

But when I looked again at the picture taken on the fly from the air bridge, I had a slight doubt : I could not dare challenge the accuracy of the Chinese pilots, and this plane had not been stopped on the A340-600 mark (sorry for the reflections, I had not time to improve the shot).

It was nevertheless a 346, according to my aircraft identification skills (I would not dare qualify its accuracy, but it is often challenged on this website ^^).

I tried checking the safety card, but I had a real problem with the reflections that day: they masked the type of the aircraft.

The seat diagram in J on seatguru gave me on other choice but reference this flight as having been flown in a 333. I had a slight doubt on the accuracy of seatguru, where I failed to locate my seat 75L.

I had been among the last to board. It was a wrong MU travel world : I would not have minded having a full aircraft on the short PVG-TPE leg, but I wished I had had a lie-flat bed for the CDG-PVG night.

Especially since I would not have been disturbed by an infant in a bassinet. I counted 41 passengers in this second Y cabin, hardly more than a third of the capacity, and that made visually even fewer, because most of them were towards the front of the aircraft.
I had missed an opportunity to fly in a 346, but it made a lot of economic sense for MU to change the aircraft to a smaller 333, if it was big enough for the return flight.

Safety demonstration on the IFE screens

Then came the announcement of a delay due to air traffic control : no doubt it was a Chinese flight. The plane was had not moved an inch and I observed the ground staff finishing the loading of the holds through rain stained windows. The FAs did not prohibit moving around in the plane, which gave me the opportunity to take a shot of this cabin which was really empty, shortly before they introduced them selves and bowed in front of the passengers.

The ad on the antimacassar is for maotai, a very strong and expensive spirit, which is highly prized in Chinese banquets. This one is produced in Guizhou province, the poorest of all provinces in China, known mostly for its domestic workers working in the major coastal cities, like the one I had in Beijing.

The waiting was endless, but I kept typing my report of the previous flight, since using an electronic device was unlikely to endanger the aircraft. The FAs passed around to distribute cups of water, like in Paris when my previous MU flight was delayed too.

Since I could move around in the plane, I took a picture of the KLM 744 parked at the next gate (the air bridge was really spotter unfriendly)

Pushback at long last at 13 :21, which was ETD+51’

Then came a tour of PVG, but the smog was awful.
Hong Kong Airlines A330

Air China A321

JAL 738

Aeroflot A330

Korean Air 744 freighter

Shanghai Airlines 763

Eva Air 744, operating the short TPE-PVG line

China Southern A320

The alignment of FM and MU aircraft parked in the distance, vanishing in the haze

We only see three out of four Juneyao Airlines A320s parked next to each other; passengers were deplaning out of the first one.

Take off at last at about 13:45, i.e. 1h15’ late, after another long wait (the air traffic control, again) before the runway. The captain announced a 1h30’ flight time.

Seat 75L was on the right, with adverse lighting conditions, but since I was not going to be a nuisance to other passengers, I moved to have a view of the left wing.

And the winglet

This is the fuel dumping outlet.

Since the cabin was so empty, I went even further towards the front of the second Y cabin, when the emergency exit seat was empty.

Another winglet-shot

And a zoom on the reactor for Rolls lovers

I could not expect much from the view through the window, since the route is mostly over the ocean. It was time for lunch anyway, and I was getting quite hungry, because my previous meal had been at 5 am on the incoming flight.
It was a standard Chinese short haul meal, without a choice of hot meal, with a vegetable salad (in Taiwan, tofu is considered as a vegetable in common vocabulary), a very decent chicken-rice, bread and a genoise with chestnut filling which was quite caloric and therefore welcome.

All that was not high level gastronomy, but it was good, and in the top of what you can expect in the world in Economy on a flight lasting 1h30’ according to the schedule, but 1h15’ in reality. I liked it better than on the one hour longer TPE-PEK outbound flight.
It was served very quickly since the flight was so empty, and a FR came to spontaneously offer me a second cup of coffee.

I was on the wrong side to see Taiwan at the arrival, and I was too tired to change seat again, but the weather was such that I could not expect exceptional vistas.

Final descent on TPE Runway 23R, which was a rather unusual orientation.

I was sorry the air was so hazy, because I wish I could have a taken a better shot of this FAT (Far Eastern Air Transport) 757 in a red advertising livery. FAT had not operated this type of aircraft for years, but still displayed a 757 on the home page of its webpage. They had more important matters to handle at the time they were struggling out of a three year grounding for bankruptcy.

Arrival at Terminal 2 at 15:06, i.e . 66’ late.

Not much walking involved ; this is the fork between arrivals and connections.

Overlooking the seldom used Customs counters before going down one level.

The immigration officer was no beauty queen, but she compensated her looks by the smile of a Taiwanese immigration office, as wide and natural as they always are, when she gave me back my passport and resident’s card. I thanked her :
- 謝謝 !
- 不會 !
This was precisely the moment when I felt back in Taiwan. This idiomatic answer is typically Taiwanese (the Mainland Chinese use a different expression). This politeness of the immigration officer was part of the tiny pleasures of life in Taiwan, and administratively speaking, I had only been in Taiwan for a few seconds only before receiving it.
I had no checked luggage and went directly to the customs.

And towards this welcome sign which displayed a “comfortable" 25°C temperature, while it was freezing in Paris, with a giant picture of the basalt organs of Huching Island, in the Penghu archipelago.

Of course, you should go there at sunset to have such a good lighting, but the tour boats leave very early in the morning from Magong (MKG).

Nobody was waiting for me landside ; far right, this was the corridor to the bus station of the city center (and many other destinations).

The Penghu archipelago was again mentioned in this other tourist advertising. This fish weir which is submerged at high tide has been built in the last century by two brothers, Yen Chong and Yen Yuji.

It is located on the tiny Qimei island. For amateurs of an exotic day trip, note that Daily Air operates the KHH-CMJ-MKG route and back with a Dornier 228.

I was not there, but at the stop for Bus 1819, which all my readers know to be the semi-direct bus towards Taipei’s central station, for a small 125 TWD fare.

Flight Report was blocked by the internet censorship in Mainland China at that time (in 2015, it was still the case in Changsha, but not in the other cities that I visited), but I was back in Taiwan and my 3G adapter provided me a last minute chance to take a corporate screen shot…

… before reaching the East gate of Taipei’s main station, 25 hours (including one of sleep) after leaving my Paris home.

Fortunately, the 28th of February, an official holiday in Taiwan, was only two days later, which would ease my return. That this day (“228” in Taiwanese parlance) has been made a official commemorative day shows that Taiwan has accepted to look back at the dark pages of its history.
I did not attend again the commemorations, which I described in the bonus of this FR.
In the 228 Park, next to the stone marker of the entrance of the 228 Memorial Museum stands one the 100,000 peace poles planted around the world at the initiative of Masahisa Goi (1916-1980) of Japan. They all bear the prayer “May peace prevail on earth” in several languages on its sides. Note that the translation is not the same in simplified Chinese in the center and traditional Chinese on the right, even though it is the same language.

I have never seen one in Mainland China, probably because it started in Japan, and yet this prayer makes a lot of sense in this China – Japan – Taiwan triangle.
Look at these three stamps in my passport: there were two flights in this triangle, with KIX-TPE on November 2nd, 2012 and PVG-TPE on February 26th, 2013. The red Mainland Chinese stamp was similar to the one received in PEK, but I did not get a bulky stamp indicating a maximum departure date, because it was a same day departure.
In between the two flights, Taipei’s entry stamp had changed : the sober acronym « ROC”
(Republic Of China) had been replaced by “ ROC (Taiwan)” . The name of Taiwan in clear with the word “Republic” must set tempers in Mainland China, and this was most probably neither by chance or by mistake.

This was an obvious answer to the issuance in November 2012 of a new passport model by Mainland China, which displays a map including all its territorial claims, including Taiwan. The neighboring countries protested, and Indonesia (I believe) used a correction stamp on these passports.

© Reuters/Wall Street Journal
And to drive matters further with regards to Taiwan, another page of this new Chinese passport shows as a backdrop image the small Lalu island in Sun Moon Lake, an iconic Taiwanese tourist spot (I was not impressed when I visited it).

Lalu Island, in Sun Moon Lake
The Japanese sentence on the peace poles means literally “May the peoples in the world be in peace”.

I share this prayer with all the travelers who contribute to building this peace when talking with people around the world.