Hainan Opens Bookings For Beijing – Las Vegas & Garuda Plans Route To US

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Two Asia-based airlines are looking to make inroads into the US market with Chinese airline Hainan opening up reservations on its new Beijing to Las Vegas route and Indonesian airline Garuda planing to make the most of its recent FAA upgrade by launching a new route to the US.

Hainan’s New Beijing – Las Vegas Route

From 2 December 2016 Hainan is launching its new Beijing – Las Vegas route using its Boeing 787-9 aircraft on a 3x/week schedule:

HU7969 PEK 13:30 – 09:40 LAS (Mon, Wed, Fri)
HU7970 LAS 11:40 – 16:40+1 day PEK (Mon, Wed, Fri)

These will be the first direct flights between China and Las Vegas and, if they prove to be successful (which I have no doubt they will be), there will be a string of other airlines looking to follow suit.

Hainan’s 787-9 Dreamliner features 30 Business Class and 258 regular Economy Class seats but don’t expect anything groundbreaking.

The Business Class cabin is set out in a 2-2-2 layout…..

…so it’s not an all-aisle-access cabin..but the seats are a true lie-flat product (no angled seats here).

Hainan Business Class 787 Dreamliner

The seat map shows that the Economy Class cabin offers 9-across seating…..

….so I didn’t need SeatGuru to tell me that the cabin is tight.

Economy Class has a seat pitch of just 31″ and seats that are just 17″ wide so this is comparable to the cabins we’ve seen on the American Airlines Dreamliners – compact and uncomfortable on long flights.

From an amenity standpoint Hainan isn’t too bad as it offers Bvlgari amenity kits and Bose noise-cancelling headphones in Business Class….

Hainan Business Class amenities

…and Economy Class seats all come with good-size personal entertainment systems in the seat-backs, blankets and “waist pillows”.

Lastly, the Hainan Dreamliners are equipped with overwater WiFi so passengers can stay connected for most of the flight.

I can’t say that I’d bother checking this route for Economy Class seats if I wanted to fly to China (there are enough uncomfortable ways for me to do that straight out of LA) but I’d definitely be interested in trying out the Business Class product – I’ll keep my eyes on fares and see if anything interesting comes up.

Garuda Looks To Fly To The US

Back in August the US FAA raised the safety rating of Indonesian Airlines up to “Category 1” nine years after the rating was cut. Airlines without a Category 1 safety rating are banned from operating flights to the US so this was big news for Garuda Indonesia.

Now that the 9 year ban has been lifted Garuda says that it’s looking to start up a new route to the US.

Garuda Indonesia 777-300 courtesy of Woodys Aeroimages via Flickr

The Jakarta Post quotes a Garuda spokesperson as saying:

The plan to fly a US route is a business expansion [decision] to strengthen Garuda Indonesia’s position as a global aviation player. We immediately are taking all actions needed to realize the plan

After confirming that Garuda plans to take advantage of fifth freedom rights between Japan and the US the spokesman confirmed that the route would be operated by a 777-300ER aircraft routing via Tokyo’s Narita airport.

All the preparations are taken by referring to all existing regulations and procedures […] Up until now, Japan provides fifth freedom traffic rights for Indonesian airlines, which allows Garuda to add a load factor before flying to the US

I haven’t found any mention of which US city Garuda plans to serve with its first route but, if I was to hazard a guess, I’d say San Francisco would have to be quite high on the list of possible destinations.

Garuda already code shares with Delta on flights from Tokyo Haneda to Seattle and Los Angeles so that would seem to make San Francisco a logical choice.

Garuda may only just be coming back from a 9 year US and EU exile but don’t think that means that the aircraft aren’t going to be up to standard – far from it.

The Garuda 777-300ER comes fitted with 8 First Class suites….

Garuda Indonesia 777-300ER First Class Suite

…..42 lie-flat, all-aisle-access Business Class seats…..

Garuda Indonesia 777-300ER Business Class Cabin

…and an Economy Class cabin that offers seats with a 32″ seat pitch (not bad) but only 17″ of seat width (not good):

Garuda Indonesia 777-300ER Economy Class Cabin

When you consider that the Business Class layout and seats look very similar to what Etihad has on its 777-300ER aircraft and that even the Economy Class seats come with foot rests, USB sockets, power outlets and large screen entertainment systems, then this doesn’t look like an out-of-date airline at all. In fact it puts quite a few “first world” airlines to shame.

I’m not entirely sure I’m in much of a hurry to jump on an Indonesian carrier after the issues they’ve had in the past…although I guess one has to trust the FAA to some degree so maybe I’m being overly delicate.

It will be interesting to see which US city Garuda choses for its first route back to the US and, until we know that, I’ll defer having the internal debate of whether to fly the airline or not.