Omicron-era Trip Report: United Check-in and Air China First Class Lounge at PVG
Traveling out of China and returning is a hassle to say the least. Mainly it’s the process to return:
the uncertainty of changing policies that could lock you out of the country at any moment (like what happened to me in 2020)
the chance of flights being cancelled due to triggering the “circuit breaker” (if 5+ passengers on a given flight test positive in the week after arrival, that flight is suspended for 2 weeks)
the risk of contracting COVID while overseas, and if you test positive during one of the “official” tests required by the Chinese consulate at one of their approved labs, you need to go through the “recovery process,” take chest X-rays, more PCR tests, and then a waiting period of weeks to even months before you can apply again for permission to fly into the country.
Despite these risks, I made a choice in December to go back to the US at the end of the month. It was been more than a year since I’d been back, and there were so many reasons to return.
On the day of departure, I had several meetings in the morning and even a trip to the hospital to get some medicine and see if they could give me another vaccination record. I was running late the whole day, because actually the night before I stayed up late to upload my travel documents to United’s “Travel Ready Center.” They weren’t taking my vaccine certificate, I think because it didn’t say the words “Sinopharm” on it (though it was, it just said another part of the vaccine’s full name). I consulted with my WeChat group about what to do, and there’s another site where I can download a certificate that shows that name. I uploaded that, and that was accepted. So after a whole day of running late for every appointment, I was naturally also late getting to the airport. How strange it was to go to Pudong Airport after so long!
The check-in line for the flight, with so many passengers laden with suitcases upon suitcases, was so long that it continued to the opposite side of check-in counters. Of course, so few flights are operating that there’s plenty of space to spread out. Thankfully, the 1K line was much shorter. It turns out I needn’t have worried about uploading those documents to United’s Travel Ready Center. They checked the documents at the check-in counter anyway, and the agent told me that my original certificate, the one without “Sinopharm” written on it, was acceptable. Probably it’s because he could read the Chinese and knew that what I had was equivalent to Sinopharm, and maybe the people who reviewed the documents submitted on the website didn’t know.
The terminal itself was eerily empty.
The flight board showed just how few flights were operating. Just this week, Pudong Airport implemented some new cleaning regulations in response to the Omicron variant, which caused significant delays in the turnaround of aircraft. To the point where a Delta flight from Seattle to Shanghai turned around halfway through the flight because operationally they would not be able to make the turnaround in Shanghai in time. Delta eventually cancelled the rest of their flights to and from China for the week. Not surprisingly, my flight left very full - 320 passengers out of 370 capacity.
As a Star Alliance Gold member, I could use the Air China lounge. Normally I would be directed to the business class lounge to the right of the counter, but today that was closed, and I was directed to the first class side on the left side.
I was expecting something quite fancy, but actually the buffet was much less extensive than the business class side, and there wasn’t really any difference in furnishings that I noticed.
Buffet choices included this dried-out looking fish.
Fried rice.
Roasted potatoes.
Shredded tofu.
And carrots and I think what was chicken. A rather uninspiring lineup, that made me concerned about upset stomach seeing how they looked like they’d been left in the warmers for a while.
I took some potatoes and tofu. They looked the… cleanest? Least saucy? items.
There was also some fruit in a refrigerated case.
I also had a matcha Swiss roll, but the flavor was too strong - and didn’t seem like a natural matcha flavor -, so I couldn’t finish it. Everything in the refrigerated case came covered.
I noticed some people around me were eating what looked like xiaolongbao out of small steamers. I looked and looked for where there could be a stack of steamers hiding. And then I noticed that there was a sign with some dishes that were available upon request. Xiaolongbao wasn’t listed here (though it was available), but there were quite a few other dishes.
Knowing that unless there’s someone wrapping xiaolongbao in the kitchen, that they would probably be the plasticky industrial frozen kind. Same with the wontons. So I went for the noodles.
I ordered the noodles with “sautéed chicken and pickled vegetable,” but after waiting quite a while, out came something that didn’t look like what I was expecting. I told the server, I had ordered the chicken one, and she insisted that that’s what she gave me. Then on another look, she realized the mistake, and was like oh, how did that happen. Indeed, this was the “chili vegetable” noodles. She offered to have the other one made for me, but since I had waited so long, I decided I’d just eat this one.
I’m glad I did!
This was basically a spicy mixture of diced potatoes and other vegetables, and diced pressed tofu. Very tasty!
Our flight status was showing on time, so I went to the gate for boarding. But, not surprisingly due to the new cleaning procedures, our 8pm flight was delayed about three hours. So I went back to the lounge to eat. i knew that there wouldn’t be any food served on the first leg of the flight from PVG to ICN, meaning dinner wouldn’t be served until several hours from now, and so I had better eat up now.
I ordered the shredded chicken noodles again, and this time, they got my order right. It was pretty good, but a bit hard to get all the shreds of chicken and shreds of pickled vegetable without a proper soup spoon.
I loaded up on whatever else I could find in the lounge. The chocolate tart - mousse topped with ganache - was not bad. But you can see it had a big thumbprint on the right side. I also had more fruit.
I also had a kind of dry, boring sandwich with processed meat and cheese, and a mandarin orange. By this time I thought I might try that bowl of wontons, but they said that they’d run out for the day.
I’m happy I had access to the lounge, of course, but the food selection was seriously nothing special. I felt I kind of had to assemble a whole bunch of so-so options to fill up.
