Guangzhou Airport

While clean and shiny and generally an OK airport the international to China domestic transfer desk remains an understaffed nightmare. At least no one tried to extort a preposterous excess baggage fee from us on this trip. If you are coming in to China from abroad try and make your transfer in Hong Kong so you fly to your destination on an "international" flight.

Guangzhou Airport flew out of for the first time back to Helsinki instead of using Hong Kong. Smart and spacious and well organized as are most of the newer airports in China these days sadly puts a lot of the main European and more so the American airports to shame. Sign posts and directions are clearly visible in English so getting around is not a problem. From checking into passing through security the process was fairly slick with no noticeable delays some of the gates at the end of the piers are a good walk but a moving walkway covers most of the distance assistance by way of golf carts are available. Not sure if it was the time of the day but there was plenty of seating available between the gates.

Travelling domestically I was checked in under a minute from walking in the door. Security was no hassle either moving through. Went to the lower gate lounge where I would be bussed to my distant awaiting aircraft. However on arriving at the bottom at a small & poorer quality lounge there was no means of going back up into the rest of the airport as the escalators were blocked off. Entire A320 plane load was put onto a single bus for the long distant ride across to the far side of the airport. Not very comfortable especially for several elderly travellers I saw. Hopefully the expanded gates under construction will do away with these long bus transfers.