Travelling Along the Silk Road with China Southern: Istanbul to Urumqi

Background

In Summer 2016, I was fortunate enough to spend a few weeks travelling around China. Coming from the West, it only seemed right that I started my tour in Xinjiang. Despite being the closest part of China to Europe, upon searching for flights from London to the region’s capital, Urumqi, most itineraries involve a geographically illogical route incorporating a lengthy backtrack from Beijing, Guangzhou or Shanghai. The most direct option on a single airline took the form an Air Astana route via Almaty, however finding this to be extortionately priced, this was a total non-starter.

Fortunately, major carrier China Southern Airlines operates a small network of reasonably priced direct flights between Europe and Urumqi. These took the form of a Boeing 757-200 operated service from Saint Petersburg, a Boeing 737-700 service from Moscow Sheremetyevo and an Airbus A330-200 service from Istanbul Ataturk Airport. Of these, wishing to fly on the pencil like Boeing 757, the Saint Petersburg service was my first choice, followed by the Moscow option owing to the novelty of riding onboard a Boeing 737-700 between Europe and China! However, the expense of Russian visa fees meant that I ended up settling for the overnight flight from Istanbul.

Booking options for the Istanbul to Urumqi service were limited, and I was only able to find tickets for this on China Southern Airlines’ website as well as that of Chinese travel agency Ctrip. Opting to book directly with the airline, this was a trouble-free experience and I was delighted to find that I could select a seat for both my flight to Urumqi and onward flight to Beijing several days later without paying any additional fee. In the months that followed, I received a couple of emails advising me of changes to the flight time however these were only minor adjustments and did not cause any issue. Being my first flight to China, as well as my first flight on a Chinese airline, I was rather excited about this trip!

The Journey

With my flight not scheduled to depart Istanbul until late that evening, I was able to enjoy a full day exploring the sights of Istanbul. With it being in the midst of summer, whilst I had checked out I had fortunately managed to negotiate access to a shower at the hotel where I had spent the evening prior to heading to the airport. Following a pleasant day spent wandering around Turkey’s largest city, a hearty Iskender Kebap and a quick shower, I picked up my bag and made my way to the nearest metro station. Fortunately, with Istanbul Ataturk Airport enjoying its own metro station, reaching the airport was not a particularly difficult nor costly experience.

After squeezing onto a packed platform, soon, an old 1980s era M1 metro train bound for the airport hurtled into the platform and I was whisked away to the airport. Following a cramped yet cheap journey, I arrived at the airport with bags of time to spare prior to departure. Making my way up into the international terminal, I hoped to grab a coffee, charge my phone and surf the internet whilst I waited for check-in to open. Unfortunately, I only succeeded on the coffee front! That evening, the terminal was absolutely rammed and almost no free seats were available anywhere in the large check-in hall. Meanwhile, plug sockets were virtually non-existent and I ended up having to part with 2 Lira to charge my phone from a charging locker – this managed to raise my battery from 11% to 13% in around 6 minutes before advising me that charging was complete. In terms of wifi, lacking a Turkish phone number I found it impossible to register for the complimentary wifi network. Thus, opting to grab my coffee from Starbucks in order to get a code to use their network, once I had done this I was advised that this had not been working all day! Leaving me totally incommunicado for the duration of my stay in the landside area.

All-in-all, that evening I was not particularly enamoured with Istanbul Ataturk Airport’s landside area and I was thus eager for check-in to open so I could speed through to the airside portion of the airport. By 2100, a queue of suitcase wielding passengers could be seen forming around the China Southern desks at one end of the terminal although these did not open until 2230. Thankfully, once these opened, with multiple desks open and a fair number of staff on hand, the queue began to move rather quickly and it thus did not take too long to reach the front of this. My only complaint about this experience was that once at the front of the queue, I did find the check-in agent that I interacted with to be a little cold and unfriendly. Although perhaps I would be, were I to be working late on a Friday night! On a side note, the check-in staff seemed to be rather surprised that I was heading for Urumqi, and I presume that most on the flight were heading to Beijing and other cities across China. Meanwhile, it seemed that most of those around me in the check-in area were from China although I did spot a few New Zealanders heading off to Auckland via Guangzhou.

With non-stop departures all evening, during my stay I had seen a chaotic long line of passengers waiting to head to security and immigration and thus once I had my boarding pass I thought it best to head through this as soon as possible. However, much to my delight, by the time I made it through check-in I found this to be almost entirely empty and so I was able to sail through this without much hassle. Once airside, I found the airport to be fairly nice and modern, with this part of the terminal proving to be much cleaner than the landside area, although wifi provision was still poor and I ended up visiting a café in order to use their wifi. Whilst the darkness outside meant that comparatively little could be seen of the aircraft outside amongst the endless masses of Turkish Airlines jets heading to destinations across the world, I did manage to spot some incredibly interesting aircraft that I would never see back in the UK. These included an Ariana Afghan Airlines Airbus A310 bound for Kabul, a much newer Boeing 737-900ER belonging to Tajik airline Somon Air being readied for its flight to Dushanbe, and two vintage visitors from Iran – a Meraj Air Airbus A300 and a Taban Air McDonnell Douglas MD-80!

Looking at my boarding pass, this claimed that the flight to Urumqi would depart from Gate 210, with boarding set to commence at 0045. However, the departure boards instead advised that the flight would depart from Gate 304. Opting to head to the latter, I arrived there at 0045 and was greeted by a screen displaying the final boarding message. Although this proved to be no issue as most passengers were only just arriving at the gate and boarding was yet to commence. A short time later, all passengers were invited to board and I soon had my passport checked and boarding pass scanned before heading outside and onto a waiting bus. Once this was full, the doors were closed although rather than pulling away and heading over to the aircraft, the engine was turned off! Thankfully having visited the lavatories before going to the gate, I was in no urgent rush to head out to the aircraft and another twenty minutes of waiting was in store before the engine was fired up and we pulled away from the terminal. However, as it happened the bus then parked away from the terminal and the engine was turned off for another twenty minutes before we continued our journey to the Airbus. In the end, we did not arrive at the aircraft until 0145 meaning that I had been on the bus for almost an hour!

That evening, the task of flying us all to China had been delegated to the domestically configured Airbus A330-243, B-6077. Over nine years old at the time of my flight, this aircraft was assembled at Toulouse Blagnac and took to the skies for the first time in February 2007 with the test registration of F-WWYQ. Delivered to China Southern Airlines in March 2007, since then the aircraft has primarily operated domestic services in China although I did manage to find a few photographs of the aircraft which show this on the ground in Dubai. Once the bus doors opened, passengers spilled out and made their way towards the airstairs which had been positioned up to the L2 door. However, before heading onto these a China Southern (perhaps CAAC) security guard swabbed each passenger’s hand luggage whilst a flight attendant stood next to them and asked passengers to hand in their lighters.

Making my way up the stairs, I soon stepped onto the aircraft and received a very lukewarm greeting in English before crossing the galley and turning right into the forward Economy cabin. Onboard, each seat could be seen covered in a blue fabric that sported China Southern’s repeating pattern of gold stripes. Being a domestic configured aircraft, this particular aircraft lacked any sort of personal television screens for those in Economy; however this was not an issue given the comparatively short length of the flight and the fact that I hope to sleep for much of this. Examining the state of the cabin, this seemed to be clean and tidy although there were visible signs of wear on many of the seats. Meanwhile the legroom was certainly far from desirable, something which was made worse by the presence of large metal footrests on the seats. Once seated, the Airbus began to fill up quickly and I was soon joined by a neighbour in the aisle seat – a local man from Xinjiang and perhaps a fellow enthusiast who passed me their phone at several points during the flight in order for me to take pictures of the scenery below.
Soon enough, the cabin was almost entirely full and the last of the passengers boarded the Airbus. Following a quick welcome announcement in Mandarin and English, the Airbus commenced its pushback at 0200 and China Southern’s safety video was broadcast on the overhead screens. After coming to a halt, the Airbus’ two large Rolls-Royce Trent 772B-60 engines powered up into life and the aircraft commenced its taxi over to the runway. From our stand, it did not take too long to reach the runway however once there the Airbus held for around fifteen minutes whilst a series of mostly Turkish Airlines widebody Airbuses and Boeings rocketed away bound for destinations across Asia.

Finally, at 0228, the Airbus lumbered onto the runway and commenced what seemed to be a rather gentle and unimpressive takeoff roll before rotating upwards and slowly climbing into the night sky over Istanbul. Following superb views of the Turkish capital, the Airbus made its way towards the country’s northern coastline and soon the cabin lights were turned back on at full blast at which point the pre-meal drinks service began. Given the fact that the flight departed in the middle of the night, I can’t help but think that it would have been better to omit this meal entirely and just have a pre-arrival breakfast. However, fortunately the China Southern crew managed to dish out this meal rather quickly and I was soon offered either beef or chicken with rice, accompanied by an olive salad, fruit and a bread roll. I opted for the chicken which came with a delicious tomato and cream sauce. Although the chicken itself was a little dry and rubbery. At this time the inflight entertainment began on the overhead screens which consisted of Zoolander 2 and another Hollywood movie. It was a good job I wasn’t bothered about watching these as either the headphones or the headphone jack was broken as no sound could be heard when the headphones were connected to this.

Once the cabin crew had collected up the trays from the meal service, the lights were turned off once more and I slept for much of the flight. By the time I woke up, the Airbus was cruising high above far Eastern Kazakhstan and soon to cross over into Chinese airspace. Unfortunately, thick cloud cover below meant nothing could be seen of the mountains below although it wasn’t long before the aircraft commenced its descent which took us over the industrial areas that surround Urumqi. Admittedly the approach into Urumqi does not do the area any justice and is not representative of the area’s fantastic scenery. Perhaps if I knew nothing about the area and was just transferring here I wouldn’t be too keen to visit Xinjiang judging by the approach views.

Despite our late departure from Istanbul, the Airbus made a gentle touchdown in Urumqi ahead of schedule after a little over five hours in the air. Once back on the ground, the Airbus made a short taxi to one of the airport’s international gates where a jetbridge was connected up to the aircraft. Once there, disembarkation was slow and all passengers were required to disembark the aircraft. Eventually, I made my way through the cabin and thanked the crew before stepping off and heading up into the terminal building. Once there, those bound for Beijing and Guangzhou were filtered off leaving only a small number of passengers bound for the main immigration area. Fortunately, with no other international flights arriving at this time and an army of officers available, I passed through this quickly and without issue and soon made it to the baggage collection hall.