Flew Hong Kong Airlines HX690 Hong Kong To Sapporo on Friday 30 March 2018 heading into the Easter break. I’m always reluctant to fly Hong Kong Airlines for one particular reason. That reason is the absolutely ridiculously long queues and subsequent wait times at check-in. Hong Kong Airlines, like most budget airlines, skimp on staff to save costs so it’s pretty much expected.
One of the shorter queues you’ll see at Hong Kong Kong Airlines
For the Hong Kong Airlines HX690 Hong Kong To Sapporo I thought I was being particularly clever by checking in online, printing the boarding pass and thinking I’d only have to go to the bag drop (as it says on their website). Forget about that, even if you do check in online you still have to line up with the other peasants in economy class because there is no bag drop, it’s basically all just Self Check in and Bag Drop, and that line had at least 100 people waiting, as is the usual case.
Thank bloody god, if there was one, they have several counters open for elderly, families (with kids under 12) and other people requiring assistance. We ended up waiting about 5 minutes as another counter opened up beside our line and one of the staff ushered us to the front of the line. There were people in front of us in the queue, but that’s been done to me so many times I wasn’t about to argue or give them an option to go first.
The flight was delayed by about 45 minutes in total, not too bad and not the airlines fault, just the usual traffic overload at Hong Kong Airport. Last time I flew Hong Kong Airlines (going to Rusutsu) I don’t remember getting food served so had a lot of snacks prepared. This was the best decision I’ve made in a while as the food on Hong Kong Airlines HX690 Hong Kong To Sapporo was, how can I put it nicely, atrocious. Grobblers kids meal was fine, some macaroni and cheese and tiny bit of bolognese, but he gobbled it up, as well as a bread roll, apple juice and some fruit.
If I could have, I would have eaten that. Instead, the adult choices were Chicken and Rice, or Pork something and vegetables. All I heard was vegetables, so chose the chicken rice. Now usually you order Chicken Rice on a flight and you know it’s not going to be something Gordon Ramsay is going to be pleased about, but it’s usually edible. Not this time, the Chicken Rice on Hong Kong Airlines HX690 Hong Kong To Sapporo was absolutely disgusting. The chicken looked like it’d been sitting in the Sudan for about 3 years and I have no idea what the taste or sauce was. I took two bites and proceeded to get into the snacks I had bought along.
This actually looks alright, but tastes crap
There was a nice and warm bread roll, some green lesbian noodles and some tofu for dessert. If you’re used to eating at Cafe De Coral, then this’ll probably just suit you just fine. Anyway it’s a budget airline and I because I was doing HKG-CTS-HND-HKG this was, by a long, long way, the cheapest option available to get into New Chitose at a reasonable time and not have to get up at a ridiculous hour.
Seats are fine, with my and Grobblers size it doesnt really matter. Almost forgot, when boarding at the airport, they were good enough to tell me before we got on, that the TV in my seat was broken, and asked if we wanted to be moved to a seat which had a TV that worked, but no windows. I told them don’t worry about it because I had my Chromebook Flip Loaded up with some tv shows and Grobbler had his tablet and Nintendo Switch. Still, I appreciated them telling me beforehand and giving me an option. Most budget airlines would just pretend they didn’t know.
Overall, Hong Kong Airlines HX690 Hong Kong To Sapporo was fine, with that once exception of the food, which I don’t really care too much about because Airline food is usually pretty crap anyway. For the price, it was about one third of what Cathay charged, it’s well worth it and I’d do it again. If you’re not traveling with kids, you just need to put up with the massive check-in queues and wait, and if you can do that, there’s nothing that much worse than Cathay apart from the food that would make it sensible to book Cathay for three times the price.
Check out Hong Kong Airlines website here for flight deals between Hong Kong and New Chitose or ask us any questions on Twitter about the flight. Check out our Kiroro Ski Resort pages for more info about skiing in Japan with kids.
