Yesterday was the start of the week-long National Day holiday in China. According to Xinhua, some 150 million Chinese will be travelling around the country or overseas.
And I joined the crowd, flying to Hong Kong.
I was very worried about hordes of people at the airport so I left my place a bit earlier. The roads were fine... until we got to the toll booth. After that we inched along the highway. I was anxious things would get worse.
But eventually my taxi made it to the airport at the time I had hoped to arrive.
The departure area wasn't as chaotic as I had anticipated, maybe because I was there at 7:30 in the morning. Checking in and passport control went very smoothly with short waits. I was very impressed.
There were lots of airport staff around to help people, from putting small bottles of liquids into plastic sealed bags to directing them to gates or selling merchandise. And they were all pretty much polite and friendly.
At our gate, we had to be transported to the plane on the tarmac and again this was done in an orderly manner too.
Three hours later we landed in Hong Kong after a relatively smooth (and quiet) ride.
So it looks like Beijing Capital Airport is capable of handling big crowds... probably a practice run for next year.
If only they could do something about the traffic to the airport. But then again the airport train is almost completed and that could alleviate the congestion.
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1 comment:
in a recent trip to beijing i was very impressed by the courteous manners of the paassport control personnel. in the old days they have a masked face and a rather solemn look. but this time i am quite surprised they smile a little and hand back the passport with both hands. crowd control at the airport still needs some srtreamlining. hopefully by next summerr it will be more smooth than at present.
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