A write up on my experiences on travelling to Nepal on China Southwest Airlines.

The preliminaries.

Getting the tickets. I booked my flight through Zen Travels because I have now stopped using Travel House Nepal due to some problems I had with them earlier. I found the customer service good. Every time I sent them an email, I would get a phone call from them 15 mins later which I appreciated much. The tickets came around to be close to 1600 dollars. It would have been cheaper if we had gotten the tickets 3 weeks earlier and we would have paid a much lower price of under 1200. I also noticed that there was black friday deal on Emirates which seemed pretty cheap. So something to look out for for the next year. But it is hard to schedule it in considering the work schedules and the flexibility of the flight dates.



Getting your priority passes Of course this is not a must, but it does add a little flavor to your journey. But in this case, I felt this could have easily gone either ways. It was a little more of a hassle to find the lounges but it is pretty easy to figure it out once you get used to it. You can read up more on getting priority passes here –> <https://thepointsguy.com/guide/all-about-priority-pass-program/>



Day -1

Packing and luggage I had two bags and they ran up pretty close to the allowed weight of 50lbs I had two carry-ons – a bag pack and a small carry on suitcase. I had packed them pretty light. I didn’t have any problems with it being over the limit of 10 lbs as it was stated in the China Southern website .

Boingo app Since I had Amex Platinum card, I also signed up and downloaded the Boingo app . More on this here. <https://amex.boingo.com/>

Priority pass app I also downloaded the Priority pass app. I hadn’t received my priority pass card so I called them up and got the digital verification code, and registered . More on this here <https://www.prioritypass.com/member-support/apps>

Seat assignments The China Southern website is really user unfriendly and badly designed so I could not really make changes to seat assignments. I did call up Zen travels but they said that they can only assign seats two hours before. I actually was assigned 41D which was an aisle seat and what I wanted.



Leg 1 – MSP to LAX

Parking and carts My wife gave me a ride to the airport and we parked on the Green ramp level 5 which was pretty packed. I had her stay in the car and had to go all the way down to Terminal 1 to get a cart which was 5 bucks . For the curbside drop off, you can choose door 2 from what I can remember and it has carts on the right.

Lounges in MSP I had approximately 1 hour before the flight started boarding. There is a Delta lounge right next to the entrance of Terminal F. Since I had signed up for Amex Platinum, i decided to go here instead of the other lounge through Priority Pass. The Delta lounge was packed. The bar was full and I didn’t have much time to really look around. The food was ok, there were soup and a salad bar and other snacks. It felt ok to leave my stuff somewhere while I got my food since other people were doing it.

Boarding The Delta flights usually fly from the Terminal G and the G 13 gate was a bit of a walk, close to 5 mins but it felt longer . There was a long line already there and it is best to find a place to sit . I was on Group 4 but I realized it is better to board early . I don’t think they were checking any groups. The reason being, the overhead luggage compartment got full really quickly . The Delta reps were asking a lot of folks to checkin their carry on, but no one looked really interested. I was lucky and I got the last space left for my carry on.

Delta flight I found Delta to be quite comfortable. Bring your headphones since they do provide inflight entertainment . I watched a couple of movies. The onscreen display was good and navigating back and forth around the movies was pretty easy and user friendly.



Leg 2 – LAX to Guangzhau

Shuttle to Terminal B Once I landed at LAX, it was pretty convenient going from Terminal 2 to Terminal B. I didn’t see any signs so I had to ask for direction for this. There is a shuttle bus that you can take and you don’t have to go through additional security checks. You pretty much have to go down on to the runway through the stairs and there are lines for different terminals. But there were always someone helping you out and giving directions. Also, there are no security checks needed here.



In the LAX airport I had about 5 hours until the boarding time. KAL Lounge I spent about 2 hours in the KAL lounge. Although the priority pass website lists that the hours are limited until 6 pm, it is actually that you need to have checked in by 6 pm. The lounge closes sometime after 11 pm. Inside the KAL lounge, the couches looked a little dirty. The food was ok. They had fried rice, pizza, sushi, sandwiches and chicken wings. I also saw that they had cup noodles. They also had coors light and budwiser for beer. For liquour, I saw JW black label, bombay sapphire gin. They had red and white wines too. Later they brought out cognac too. The bathrooms are pretty clean and well maintained. They also had showers. Gate and PF Changs Gate After the KAL lounge, I went and walked to the gate which was not too far from the KAL lounge and spent about 15 mins on the couches. I tried to charge my phone on the outlet in the couch but for some reason, it didn’t seem to be working . The USB outlet seemed to work though. I researched if I could use multiple lounges within the same airport through priority pass and I found a lot of posts about people doing this without any issues . So I walked back to try out PF Changs. It looked really busy in there were a lot of priority pass members. I checked in and got a little receipt and I got my table within 1 minute. I had 30 dollars to spend through PP and I ordered a Kung Pao chicken which was alright. I wanted to try out a drink on the menu but looks like they were out. I asked for the check and all I had to do was present the receipt that I had received during the checkin . New boarding pass It turns out that a new boarding pass is required so I had to stay in a long line for about 10 mins to get it. Everything looked a little chaotic. So I suggest you stay in line early . Getting the boarding passes is pretty easy but seat changes take a little longer. They also issued boarding passes all the way up to Nepal . Boarding the plane Again this was a little chaotic, and had to stay in line for another 15 mins. There were multiple lines by seating rows which was listed on a white board infront of each line The flight The seats were less comfortable than Delta and the leg room was about the same. They had pretty good movies on the inflight entertainment services but it was not user friendly. I had to tap on the screen multiple times to navigate back and forth No good hindi movies btw. The collection that they had was pretty old. The food was again Ok. I got the pork with rice which was a little bland for me. I don’t think they had a good selection on alcoholic beverages. The flight is really long and they didn’t give travelers little bags with eye masks, tooth brushes etc like in Qatar, Turkish or Eithad. So, I suggest you bring your tooth brushes and eye masks. They do bring out sandwiches and water later. The flight crew is pretty nice and responsive. The other folks who were seated infront of us called the flight attendants frequently and each time they came with a smile. They do server breakfast 2 hours before landing. They have a choice of eggs and congee. I got the eggs which was ok. One thing I found out is that Chinese people are really flexible and can sleep through anything and anywhere in various body positions. I was anxious throughout so I couldn’t sleep much. I think i slept 3 times 1 hour each through out the flight. I had the aisle seat and lot of people were bumping on my shoulder.



Leg 3 in GuangZhau Going through transfer Once you land at Baiyan Intl Airport, you have to transfer which involves going through security check points. Just follow signs to transfer desk and you should be fine . There were multiple lines but I just showed my boarding pass to Nepal and they pointed out the line to go to. I saw a lot of kids crying. Maybe because of the environment, it felt a little stressful for no reason. All in all, it is pretty smooth. I didn’t have to take out anything from my bags or my pocket. They did ask me if I had a laptop or other electronic devices, which I didn’t. Premium Lounge Once in the terminal, I had another hour until the boarding time. So I followed signs to Premium lounge. This was by far the best lounge so far. They had OK food but it looked clean and had pretty good barista making mochas and lattes. They also had massage chairs but I didn’t have enough time. The bathrooms smelled a little though. Also they had a pretty good selection on beer. Boarding the flight to Nepal This was pretty easy and stress free. There were a lot of empty seats on the plane. The food was also really good. Hindu meal I talked to the attendant and he said that Hindu meal is actually vegetarian. So he suggested not to get Hindu meal if I wanted something else. And, although my itenerary stated that I had hindu meal, he said that I was not listed in his list. So I was fine.



Touchdown KTM Getting out of KTM was pretty easy. They don’t require Nepali citizens to fill out the … card anymore. Actually, the lines for nepali citizens were smaller than the foreigners . It looked like it did take some time for them to get visas and have the passport stamped. There is free wifi in KTM airport which I used to call my sister through Viber. Once I got my bags and had my cart loaded I headed out, again pretty stress free. My sister told me that now the private parking lot is further down. so we had to roll the carts for about 5 mins through the dusty roads which had a lot of traffic . I am not sure if she could have brought the car near the arrival gate but I was too tired to ask. This was may be one of the most challenging, since I had to roll the cart with my two bags through the streets which was a pretty steep downhill and had a lot of traffic. At one point, one of my bags rolled down from the cart to the street, so I had to hold on to the bags tight. This would have been lot harder if I had been travelling with kids considering how scary it can be on the roads in Nepal.



All in all in summary, the whole experience was OK but I would prefer travelling through Qatar or Abu Dhabi because of shorter flights. I would rate China Southern lower than Qatar and Etihad and may be about the same as Turkish Airlines. But I think it is pretty good for the price. Also, I liked the flight attendants better on China Southern. For some reason, I always found the attendants in Qatar and Eithad a little grumpy. The lounges did make this journey a little better. I had packed a lot of food for my journey but I didn’t eat any of it since I ate mostly at the lounges. There was a time when I got hungry on the flight from LAX to China but I was too lazy to stand up and get the food out of my bags.