Dear all, I'm back for a review with one of China's leading airline: Xiamen Air(lines). This was my first time flying on their fleet(s).
I arrived at 4 am at the airport and it was raining. Going to the airport with less lighting on the highway was something else. Check in area had already been full of people queueing. The other counters were full with colourful briefcases from umrah pilgrimage bureaus.
We boarded at 6.05am through Gate 1, the most remote gate of T3 which made us walking a lot in the early morning. It was part of T3's early building before being expanded to the current one until Gate 20-ish. What surprised me was that our fleet today would be the specially painted one. Universal Studio livery visited Jakarta!
The Universal Studio nuance was spread through the wallpaper and headrest cover. Love their unique attire!
They had variations on the head cover as well. Hi Mr. Panda!
Look at how surprising it was to open the table and find a happy minion there.
Typical B738 interior with hang-in IFE which would drop for entertainment & safety video demonstration. Seat pitch was really comfortable.
I personally adore how the safety video really emphasized Fujian's rich culture. Seen below Chinese opera costumes - one of my favorite stage arts!
Seat pocket contents: inflight magazine Xiamen Air #02 February edition, safety card, and air sickness bag.
Inflight meal was distributed in the middle of the flight, which consisted of beef rice, salad, silky pudding, bread roll, and sliced fruits. A full course indeed! They tasted great, surprisingly, especially the rice texture which met my expectation.
As I didn't bring my earphones to connect with the audio on hang-in IFE, the entire flight was filled with sleeping, as it was 5 hours on board. When we were descending, I captured some nice views from above, including these two different types of housing building in Xiamen:
Long short story, we landed smoothly at Xiamen Gaoqi Int'l Airport for a short layover before my connecting flight to Macau. When disembarking, I took a shot of the business class seats which looked really comfy for medium and long haul.
Thanks for sharing this report on MF’s product. That is a quite a special livery, but the in-cabin advertisement is a little over the top. Interesting that a Fujian carrier is advertising for Universal Studies in Beijing, would have guessed that would be more suitable on HU since they have prior collaborations with Universal on other special liveries.
While not as good as their B787s, this older B737 still looks to be in good condition and the BSI really accents MF’s color scheme. Since these are routinely used on domestic flights, it's no surprise there is no IFE/WiFi/charging (didn’t even get it on the new A321neos). The aperitif service with nuts is nice, but the meal presentation could be improved (snack box has a domestic flight feel versus tray service that other international carriers offer), so MF likely has a gap to fill to be more competitive with the options in the region. That said, still a nice product and hopefully MF can grow and fill the gap in the Chinese market left behind in SkyTeam after CZ’s departure.
Thanks for this short, but interesting read. Xiamen Air has always been an airline popping up in my searches for destinations in Asia given that Amsterdam my homeport is, though always found better solutions and information was limited about them. Seems like a decent airline so far.
Also I can't imagine what kind of headache it will be in the arrival airport for those pilgrimage flights with so many similar bags.
Thanks for sharing!
I have flown on Xiamen Airlines a few years back (2018) and I think they’re still keeping up with their service! It’s nice to see them serving hot meal which look quite appetising. However I’m kind of surprised how they would provide public overhead entertainment for such a short-haul flight. The seat and the themed cabin+livery looks nice and comfty for a 5 hour flight too.