So after wandering around some of the sights of Beijing for a few hours and getting a fantastic Xinjiang meal, we were back out on the second-to-last airport express train to PEK for the flight on to MAD. Through security with plenty of time to a very quiet departures area with around two hours to spare before our flight.
Boarding was called at around 1am, and done by zones, which was largely adhered to, the most annoying thing being the automated "May I have your attention please, Air----China----Flight----9-0-7-to-----Mad-Rid....." announcements in English and Chinese which went on for the entire boarding process without pause, especially as we were some of the last to board in group 3.
The majority of passengers for this flight seemed to be middle-aged Spanish tourists heading home, far from the planefull of noisy Chinese tourists I was expecting. I guess Air China is the only carrier flying direct to MAD, so with cheap tickets and direct flights they probably win the tourist dollar (or Euro in this case). I also thought this might have been where the "flight attendants can't speak English" complaints were coming from. But I also figured that they'd obviously already flown to get to Beijing, so probably knew what to expect.
Flight was pretty much full, at least up the back, and we were off again on time into the night sky over Beijing.
CA907
PEK-MAD
Scheduled: 0125-0725
This was what I assumed to be a relatively new 789, with IFE this time, but I don't think Air China went to any great expense to match this nice aircraft with a nice interior; it was pretty much the same as the A333 we'd just been on. This was my first time flying on a 787 and I was particularly excited. My first impression is how quiet it was, even at the rear of the plane. The other thing which I was excited (or at least intrigued) by was the dimming windows on this aircraft. However there was no fun to be had here as the crew had assumed control over the dimming and individual passengers were unable to adjust by themselves for the whole flight. They were completely dimmed around 20 mins after takeoff, and this was my view until literally around 20 mins out of MAD at 6:45 in the morning:
Now I know that you can't really tell due to the reflection, but these windows were fully dimmed, couldn't even see the wings or the flashing lights on them. Around 20 mins out of MAD, the windows were un-dimmed and we could see what was left of the Spanish sunrise.
The other thing which was quite annoying was the mood lighting, which changed or went on/off every 5 mins for the last two hours of the flight, I felt like I was in some kind of disco....is this normal??
Anyway, that aside, I was exhausted and slept for 8 hours of the flight, missing dinner so I can't tell you what it was.
We landed at MAD I think just before 7am, and even after what seemed like taxi-ing FOREVER from one side of the airport to the other, we were still at the gate a good 10-15 minutes before the scheduled arrival time.
Two flights down....so far so good!