Updated on December 14, 2016
Flight Log of Tianjin Airlines Flight 7648 from Zhangye to Lanzhou on October 18th, 2016
Time to head back to Beijing.
Since I didn’t want to miss to many lectures for this trip to Xinjiang, I chose to fly back on Tuesday so that I won’t miss the lecture on Wednesday.
During planning, one major reason, apart from the scenery and appropriate distance (by train) from Urumqi, that I chose to spend two days at Zhangye(张掖) (rather than Dunhuang(敦煌)) before heading back was the cheap flight from Zhangye to Lanzhou(兰州) at 120CNY, which would be the cheapest air ticket I’ve ever purchased.
We arrived in Zhangye relatively early from the half-day trip to Ma-Ti Temple, so after lunch I had got plenty of time to make my way to the airport for the 1635 departure. By the tour guide to Ma-Ti Temple, Zhangye Airport had cancelled it’s passenger shuttle bus, which left a three-times daily “employee” shuttle bus that didn’t fit my schedule. So under her advice I spent 22CNY for a shared ride on the Didi app to Airport.
By the way, compared with Datong(大同) Airport that I’ve been to earlier this year, with (I guess) similar passenger volume, Datong Airport was able to provide passenger shuttle bus based on arrival and departure times of its flights. (But if one consider Datong as a city, Zhangye was a county in every aspect but name, so no surprise.)
Zhangye Airport AvenueTraffic was sparse on this airport avenue, with golden leaves lining its side.
The images in this post are hosted on Imgur. Email me should there be any display problems.
Entrance to Zhangye AirportIt seems that whenever I used Nexus 6P to take a photo against the sun, such mirage would appear.
Zhangye Airport Interior
Upon arriving at the airport, I found there’s a tour group of international travelers checking in for another Tianjin Airlines flight to Xi’an that departed 10 minutes earlier than us. So it was quite bustling then.
Oh, yeah, at the same time there’s also a tour group consists of local elders to Xi’an. And tour groups are very good at generating long queues.
Boarding PassI don’t know why there was signs of Lanzhou Zhongchuan Airport on the Boarding Pass printed at Zhangye Airport. (Definitely not because I was going there, as this was on everyone’s boarding passes.)
Zhangye Airport Departure Hall
Tianjin Airlines ERJ190 (B-3162)Direct flight to Xi’an.
Passengers Disembarking ERJ190No shuttle bus for such a small airport, everybody just walked to/from the terminal.
Boarding My Flight to Lanzhou(兰州)
Zhangye Airport Terminal
Boarding My Flight to Lanzhou(兰州)
For such short-distance flights, the entire cabin service equals a bottle of water at boarding. (I should feel quite content, as nothing’s served on China United Airlines of similar lengths.)
Winglet of Tianjin Airlines ERJ190
There seemed to be an Air Force base (or a flight school) towards the end of Zhangye Airport runway, as we saw quite some training aircrafts and their pilots as we turned around for takeoff.
And GPS Tracking hosted on Wikiloc.
As usual, I modified the contrast of all the photos in the air.
Farmlands in South-East Zhangye (张掖) and Lanzhou-Xinjiang Passage Railway
Farmlands in South-East Zhangye (张掖)
Zhangye Ganzhou Airport from Above
Circular Farmlands in Gansu(甘肃)
Farmland and Villages in Gansu(甘肃)
Desert and Dunes in Gansu(甘肃)
Lanzhou-Xinjiang Passage Railway
Lanzhou-Xinjiang Passage Railway Passing through Ranges of Mount Qilian(祁连)
After that we were flying over ranges of Mount Qilian(祁连), where hills were half covered by snow and half bleak, the contrast of which looked so impressive under clouds.
Ranges of Mount Qilian(祁连) below Clouds
Ranges of Mount Qilian(祁连)
Flying over Ranges of Mount Qilian(祁连)
Ranges of Mount Qilian(祁连)
Ranges of Mount Qilian(祁连)
Villages of Beishan County South of Mount Qilian(祁连)
Sha-Gou-Liang (沙沟梁) Village of Beishan County South of Mount Qilian(祁连)
By the way,
Flying over Ranges of Mount Qilian(祁连)
Ranges of Mount Qilian(祁连)Probability due to lower altitude, there wasn’t as much snow here as in previous regions.
Mountains in Gansu(甘肃)Quite distinctive plants at different altitudes.
Mountains in Gansu(甘肃)And the road-side factory in the foreground.
Lanzhou Airport
This leg was concluded by picking up my checked bag at Lanzhou Airport. Experience of transferring to MU2602 back to Beijing will be on the next post.
END
Flight Log of Tianjin Airlines Flight 7648 from Zhangye to Lanzhou on October 18th, 2016 by Huang's Site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.