Last time I went to Beijing I had a 3 hour delay.

Not too bad? Sure, my boss experienced a 9 hour delay some time ago on his way back to Hong Kong (from Beijing).And in the end who cares if you are sitting in a first class lounge sipping a cocktail?

Unfortunately, most of the time this happens (and to and from Beijin there is 100% chances it will happen to you) you cannot wait in the lounge: you have to board the plane and wait in an overheated plane for the time when Beijin will eventually clear the plane for take off.

 

I read that, in addition to the overcrowed Chinese airspace, this is also due to the lack of means to control air traffic. As a consequence, the distance between each airplane must be much more than, let's say, when you land at Heathrow airport.

But then Chinese authorities should do something about it: what is the point in having so many departures to Hong Kong for instance (flights are not alway full) if in the end you need to be at the airport on time to wait for hours and hours at a time?

 

Hence these are a few leads to them:

 

-Reduce the number of landing slots (if capacity to deal with so many planes is not there, why pretend?).

-Extend the official airport opening hours and redespatch the landing slots: what good is it to have a departure time at 7pm when you know that you will not take off before 10pm? I would rather have the choice to be at the airport much later to catch a 10pm flight!

-Forbid smaller aircraft to land during pick time: what good does it bring to the public at large to have small aircraft landing when you can satisfy twice as many passengers by using larger aircraft (that could be coupled with a reduction in landing slots so that airlines do not lose out). And in the future, just only allow the Airbus A380 to land there!!

-...and eventually, please upgrade your air traffic control hardware!