I arrived in PEK on Saturday and am so very grateful that the APEC lane allowed me to avoid the ridiculous queues.
I love my APEC card - get the most from it in China - and love the looks I get when I go down the channels for it - the dirty looks I get from other PAX that change to excitement when I get challenged my choice of channel - to have the wiped off their face with more disgust when I get ushered through to the front of the line. Priceless. Knowing they are more likely to be shuffling forward inch by inch in that line for the next 1-2 hours and feeling that isn't going to be me, has me crank up my ipod music to some victorious theme music on my way to the baggage claim area.
Shanghai airport is the only place where I have had a pat-down by security that was as close to foreplay as it comes. She really squeezed everything and ran her hands up crevices :idea: Got me quite surprised, but she seemed to do that to everyone...
I got the same going through PVG for a domestic flight on Thursday evening, didn't think much about it until I was sitting later awaiting to board, was hang on, I just had a female security person feel up my junk. Maybe it is my visitation of Bath Houses in China finding that experience nothing to be concerned about.
Oh!! What was 'spring plus' like? I'm considering it for a TPE-PVG flight in a couple months. Not 100% sure how to book it - the booking engine doesn't specifically list 'spring plus', just the higher of the two fares shows 'extra legroom, meal, 25kg' (which I assume is spring plus!)
Spring Plus - well I booked through Ctrip - was second flight on Spring Airlines that I have ever had, and they are a LLC by all means. I didn't actually know that I had booked Spring Plus, so was a surprise when everything was being tagged that I was Spring Plus when checking in.
However I did look at it a bit after my first flight, and from memory was around 30-100 RMB more for a flight, and maybe saw it was 30 RMB when booking my current flight a couple of months ago, and just did it for the kicks of it, but forgot I did as I really wasn't going to get stressed over it as I was HLO - leaving rest of my bags in Shanghai and were forwarded on by courier to where I needed them to be during my current travels.
Spring Plus allows you to sit in the first two rows - and is curtained off during the flight like you expect J & F to be from Y on any other airline. It grants you exclusive access to the forward lavatory on the A320 - so 12 of you plus crew to the single lavatory vrs the rest of the PAX, say all 180 of them to the rear two lavatories. If you are in the first row, you do have a lot more leg room - and unlike most LCC (Jetstar) - there is a fixed bulk head floor to roof in front of the first row and crew area - so you have more leg room in the first row, and that is not shared with crew or other pax - and 1A is not sharing leg room with the escape slide on the front door. 2nd row, seemed to have no more leg room than any other seat in the flight. Getting 2B vrs 1B didn't stress me, as I prefer to have a seat in front to put my laptop, as I need to take that out of my carry on as my carry on bag doesn't fit in narrow isle overheads with the laptop in, so is standard for me to have to take it out and have with me at my seat. But being allocated 2L would have been preferred and not having a middle seat - on the left side, as I prefer window seat - and a seat on the right hand side of the aircraft.
Crew come around and personally introduce themselves by name, and call you by your name the whole flight. Then they come back at the end asking you if the flight was ok, and record it to pass on to management I guess.
Any checked bags are tagged as "Spring Plus" so assume they are prioritized in delivery at the other end. I saw only spring plus bags on the baggage belt when walking past.
And then all the food and drinks are served with substantial liberation, and seemed we had one or two crew servicing the 12 spring plus seats out of total 5 crew in cabin.
For the small amount it is, well worth it especially if you are flying ex China or within China as delays do and will happen, as they simply don't allow a plane to take off in China if a slot for it is not available in the sky. I have come to expect a minimum of 2 hours of delays in departure on any flight, even if boarding etc is all on time and schedule.
