Review of Tianjin Airlines flight from London to Chongqing in Economy

A totally different experience

Hello and welcome to another Flight Report!

This is a mini-series of 3 FRs covering a last-minute trip to China. I didn't plan on going back so soon after my last trip in September (and actually planned another trip for Easter). However, a change in circumstances meant I had to make a quick 2-week trip to the country. Luckily, I didn't have to cancel my Easter trip, so expect another series on that in the future. 

With the vast majority of European/Asian carriers avoiding Russian airspace, this has given Chinese airlines a huge advantage on routes to Europe with shorter flight times (often 1-2 hours less than their European competitors). This has led to cheaper operating costs and, therefore, cheaper ticket prices. Chinese carriers are consistently the cheapest option not just to China, but to destinations further afield like Japan and even Australia. I have notifications for cheap flights on my phone and deals from London to Australia/NZ on China Southern/Eastern are springing up weekly. 

Because of their competitive advantage, it has resulted in an unprecedented number of Chinese carriers starting long-haul operations to Europe (especially London) and has led to a lot of European carriers scaling back operations to China (British Airways stopped flights to Beijing and Virgin Atlantic has cut China out completely). One of these carriers is Tianjin Airlines, a member of Hainan Airlines group. The airline, headquartered in Tianjin, operates mainly domestic flights in China. However, they also operate a small long-haul network using a fleet of 4 Airbus A330-200s. They are the only airline flying from London to Chongqing and are one of very few long-haul destinations from the city.

Finally, this was booked as the first leg of a trip from London to Kunming, Yunnan. The domestic leg will be flown on Lucky Air, another member of Hainan Airlines Group. It's worth mentioning that I couldn't find this itinerary on any foreign websites (which is normal for Chinese airlines). This trip was booked on Ctrip, a Chinese travel agency. This is by far the easiest way to book flights in China without needing to navigate the notoriously bad websites Chinese carriers are known for. If you don't speak Chinese, you'll have to book on Trip.com (the foreign version of Ctrip). I have a suspicion that Trip.com is more expensive than Ctrip but I couldn't verify it for sure. 

I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard.

London Heathrow Airport (LHR)

Tianjin Airlines uses Terminal 3 at LHR. T3 is used mainly by Virgin Atlantic, Delta, OneWorld Airlines, airlines not from any of the major alliances or the Middle East, and select British Airways flights.

Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3 railway station. I got here on the Elizabeth Line, London's newest railway line. I find it frustrating to use but that's my opinion as someone living here. For tourists/visitors, it's a fast and convenient way to get to Heathrow from Central London. 

Walking to T3. 

The drop-off area outside the terminal. 

View of the terminal. 

The check-in area for Virgin Atlantic. 

The check-in area for other airlines. There's a stark difference between the Virgin check-in and foreign airlines, which isn't surprising but is still interesting to see. 

Departures for the afternoon/tomorrow morning. 

Check-in took 25 minutes. I did try to check in online - Tianjin's website is unusable, so I had to use the airline's WeChat program. It then asks me to log in, which requires sending a text message to a Chinese number. After that was done, I entered my flight details only to find out that online check-in isn't available. It's frustrating how they paid zero thought to anyone who doesn't live in China (or speak Chinese). I understand 90% of Tianjin's network is domestic, and so the vast majority of their passengers would be Chinese. But for foreigners, it just feels like they've been completely ignored (or forgotten about). 

Anyway, because I got here 4 hours in advance, I was fortunate enough to get a window seat. However, I didn't get to choose so it's gonna be directly over the wing with a pretty terrible view (as we'll see later on). 

Security took 5 minutes and here's the duty-free area. 

I do like the design of the area despite it being an older terminal. 

The very crowded departures area. I don't wanna type another complaint on the UK's call-to-gate system (I do it every time I fly out of the UK and I'm bored of it by now). So let's play guess-the-gate instead!! The gates here branch off in 3 directions, looking at past flights on FR24, one is for the A380s of Emirates and Qantas, the other one is mainly for Virgin and Delta, which leaves only one likely option (our plane hasn't arrived yet, which is why I had to deduce like this). 

Photo of the apron with Heathrow's famous control tower and a sunset. 

The gates. 

Success!! I guessed correctly and here's our plane just arriving from Chongqing (unfortunately, this is the best view of her). 

With nothing to do, I opted to head down the A380 branch. It's much larger and newer than the rest of the terminal. No plane spotting opportunities here either but there's a Qantas A380 heading to Singapore (SIN) and Sydney (SYD) at the end. 

Our gate got announced 90 minutes before departure and here's the seating after the boarding pass check. 

The flight

Flight time to Chongqing will be around 11 hours and here's our route: 

Another terrible photo of our plane during boarding. 

Some information about our plane:

Type: Airbus A330-200
Registration: B-8959
First flight: 3 February 2017
Age: ~8 years
Config: C18/Y242

A very economy-heavy A330-200, she was delivered new to Tianjin on 11 March 2017.

The seats onboard.

The IFE (which we'll look at later) and the tray table. 

Legroom is good, especially for a Chinese carrier. I should also mention that my seat is kinda broken as it's creaky and reclines a bit on its own (what is it with me and broken seats? Am I just this unlucky?). 

On each seat is also a blanket…

… and a pillow. 

First view out of the window with a LATAM Boeing 777-300ER heading to São Paulo (GRU). There's also an A350-1000 of British Airways in the back heading to Rio de Janeiro (GIG) and Buenos Aires (EZE). 

Hilariously, this is what I found in the headphone jack. I have no idea how it's possible to rip it like that. 

Shortly before pushback, the crew came around with actual headphones. 

Pushback on time. 

A Cathay Pacific A350-900 heading to Hong Kong (HKG).

Photo of Terminal 2 with a Shenzhen Airlines A330-300 heading to Shenzhen (SZX). 

Takeoff! Bye bye London! 

Nice views as we turn East over the city.  

Central London in the distance. 

Around 2 hours after takeoff, the crew came around with dinner:

And here it is. There were actually 3 options for the main: beef with rice, pork with noodles, and chicken with mashed potatoes (western option). I went with the chicken. It's worth noting that the crews' English were pretty poor and I only got that much information because I speak Chinese. Along with that came a box with some Chinese snacks (despite departing from London, the flight was still catered in China). The main is chicken with mashed potatoes and mushroom/broccoli. Along with the snacks (see picture below), the box contains cutlery, a bun, and some butter. All in all, the main was really good, but I find it weird how they give you a spoon and fork but no knife. I don't understand how you're supposed to eat the bun with butter without a knife but anyway… Finally, the crew came around with leftover meals and extra drinks, which was nice. 

Here are the snacks in the box. These are very Chinese snacks and unless you speak Chinese, you really don't stand a chance of understanding what they are. The green one is beef jerky (pickled pepper flavored). The egg-thing is smoked egg?? (五香蛋). It's the closest I can describe it in English (it's just a flavored hard-boiled egg). There's no English equivalent, which is why this is so hard haha. The orange box contains a coconut-custard pastry. These snacks are rather common in China (and a favorite among the local population), but I can imagine it being very weird for foreigners, especially if you don't know what they are. 

All in all, a very nice meal. Although even I found the egg and beef jerky too weird for my liking (they take a lot of getting used to, especially if you're coming from somewhere like the UK). 

With nothing else to do, let's have a look at the IFE:

The IFE comes with a remote, which is getting rare these days. 

Chinese airlines are known for their terrible IFE, which is also true of Tianjin Airlines. There are 6 'foreign' movies, they seem to be in Spanish (or French??) so they're definitely foreign… I guess? I know a lot of Western/Hollywood films are banned in China but this selection is terrible, especially for a 12 hour flight. 

There's a 'reasonable' (I'm being generous here) number of Chinese movies… which is great if you speak Chinese. English subtitles are available. Honestly, I find Chinese films to be pretty terrible, but I'm really curious what foreigners' perceptions of them are. Aside from films, there's also a 'decent' (again, I'm being generous here) number of TV shows (all Chinese). I mean, I can't imagine this IFE being interesting for Chinese people, let alone foreigners who don't speak the language (or understand the culture). 

Hilariously, there's an absolute ton of music from both Chinese and western artists (Michael Bublé, Mariah Carey, Adele, Ed Sheeran etc.), which is a huge contrast to the rest of their IFE system. Like, why did they pay so much attention to music specifically?? It honestly makes no sense haha. There's also a 'kids' section, which is just 1 or 2 shows/movies from the system chosen specifically for kids.

See the last photo - Kung Fu Panda 3 is available… only as music. Like, what is Kung Fu Panda 3 music? Just the OST/Soundtrack? What's the point of that? It probably isn't, but I'm just imagining that they put the entire film as an audio file into the system. Thinking back, I'm annoyed I didn't listen to it just to see what it is. But honestly, that perfectly sums up just how weird/hilarious this entire IFE system is. 

There are also some customs/entry guides available. 

And a health… thing?? No idea what it is (again, I'm annoyed I didn't click on it just to satisfy my curiosity). Very weird. 

And an interactive moving map! It's not often you get an interactive map, especially on an older system like this one.

All in all, it's a very Chinese IFE system with a lot of weird/Chinese quirks, especially when it comes to the music section. The system is fast and responsive. 

Sunrise somewhere east of Moscow. 

After that, I slept for a bit (and watched a pretty terrible Chinese film).

A ton of clouds and nothing to see over Inner Mongolia. 

Around 2 hours before landing, the crew came around with another hot meal. I do miss having 2 hot meals on European carriers, especially for long hauls to Asia. 

And here it is: The options were pork with rice, chicken noodles, or some kind of salmon for the western option. I went with the chicken. Along with it came another box (see below). It's a very nice meal and a 2nd hot meal on a long haul is always welcome. 

And here are the contents of the box. It came with a bun (not pictured) with butter (no knife again…), a sachet of ketchup, preserved vegetables (that red packet), a Chinese-style chicken sausage, and the same coconut-custard pastry from the first meal. Again, a very Chinese snack box, although there's a lot less in this one than the last one. 

After that, the crew started selling duty-free. Normally, there'd be a duty-free catalogue either physically or digitally on the IFE. Chinese airlines, for some reason, choose not to do this. Instead, they have the crew announce everything they're selling one by one as if they're a salesperson. Yes, it's as annoying and frustrating as it seems. They spent around 45 minutes going through their entire catalogue (all in Chinese, obviously) before coming around with trolleys. If you think the selling on Ryanair is bad, this takes it to a whole new level. Like… I just wanna go to sleep dammit!! I feel extra bad for the people who don't speak Chinese, who had to spend 45 minutes clueless and confused. 

By the time the selling was done, we had already started our descent into Chongqing. 

Unfortunately, the city is very smoggy today so there won't be much to see. 

On final approach. 

欢迎来到重庆！Welcome to Chongqing! We arrived 20 minutes early. 

Parked at the international area next to a Sichuan Airlines A320.

Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport (CKG)

Some nice photos of our plane on the way to immigration (excuse the dirty window). 

Immigration took almost no time and here's baggage reclaim. 

We're the only international flight this hour (around 95% of flights from CKG are domestic), so the area is very quiet. 

Despite the lack of flights, it took around 30 minutes for my bag to arrive as one of the last ones.

Here's the (almost deserted) arrivals area.

I'll end this FR here. I've got a few hours until my domestic flight to Kunming, which will be the next FR in this series. Thanks for reading and see you there!