Don't be late!

It wasn’t long ago when your humble correspondent showed up at Beijing Airport for an international flight 57 minutes before departure.  The check-in agent politely told me that check-ins are cut off one hour prior to departure, so if I wished to continue on to Hong Kong I’d have to buy another ticket.  Suffice it to say, Chinese airlines are dead strict when it comes to meeting check-in deadlines.

If you’re frequently rushing to get to the airport in time (and I mean, who doesn’t?) then this next piece of information could save you a lot of kuai: you need to check-in 40 minutes before your flight is scheduled to depart at Shenzhen Bao’an Airport.  This was changed from the previous 30 minute requirement on New Year’s Day.

Many people who didn’t know of the change got caught up in the mess on January 1, with hundreds missing their flights, according to the Shenzhen Daily.

The Shenzhen airport handled about 28,000 passengers or around 250 flights a day in the past days, and for each flight, there were around two to three passengers failing to catch up for not knowing the rule.

According to China Southern Airlines, it handled around 6,500 passengers on New Year’s Day and more than 100 passengers missed flights because of the new rule.

Even 40 minutes isn’t long enough lead-time on some flights; Tiger Airways, Air Asia and Shenzhen Airlines require passengers to check-in 45 minutes prior to departure.

Consider yourself warned.