Introduction

Fuzhou is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese. By rough count, there are more than 800,000 people from Fuzhou and their descendants living in the U.S., and many who don’t speak English and don’t have legal status stay in New York long term. So the New York-FOC nonstop route is absolutely not short on passenger demand.

But I had never expected this direct route to open. Based on the travel habits of most Fuzhou people, even if there are standing tickets, they still sell out, and most people basically won’t pay for a premium-cabin fare. On top of that, FOC is not a big hub and cannot attract many passengers to connect through Fuzhou.

In the end, XiamenAir still won three weekly frequencies and opened the route. I kept worrying right to the end whether they could make this profitable.

To my surprise, business class was full that day. Apart from about half the seats being occupied at boarding, the other half turned out to be paid upgrades—upgrades, paid upgrades.

Of course, these were not status upgrades. They were upgrades paid for with money. After everyone sat down, I quietly pulled an attendant over and asked about the price. She said it was charged at economy fare levels, ranging from 5,000 to 7,500 RMB. Looks like the spending power of affluent Fuzhou travelers has definitely gone up.

Mileage Redemption

XiamenAir’s roundtrip flight numbers are MF849 and MF850. This route only opened in February this year. I redeemed with DL miles at exactly 95,000. I did feel a bit reluctant, but if the miles are already sitting in your account, why let them go to waste? I’ll still reserve my more flexible miles for other airlines that are a better fit. I watched this route climb from 80,000 to 95,000, so if I had known, I would have redeemed at 80,000 when I went home in March. But hindsight is impossible, and I also watched DL miles devalue from 70,000 to 95,000 in front of me. So once again, I remind readers to spend down miles sooner rather than later. Airline mileage is like an endless money printer, and inflation is very much foreseeable.

Onboard Facilities

XiamenAir is using a 787-9 to operate this route. It has a business cabin and economy cabin layout, with 8 rows of business in a 1-2-1 configuration. The two middle seats in the last row are taken by the galley, so there are 30 business seats in total, and 257 seats in the rear cabin, so capacity is still reasonable. The odd thing is I could not find photos to fully explain this with "pics or it didn’t happen," so readers will have to imagine it themselves.

As a newer aircraft, the 787 looks quite nice. After flying international routes for a while, 777s and 747s can make you feel a bit nauseous, while the 787 has a fresh look.

The in-flight screen is fairly large, but there’s one downside: the footrest is too high, and when lying flat, turning over can make your feet bump into it, which affects sleep.

I usually prefer sleeping on my right side, so I still chose a right-side window seat.

The left side of the armrest also has a large storage bin.

Three-point seatbelt design; please ignore my double-chin effect.

Can you believe me when I say I didn’t even bring down my toiletry bag after landing?

Flight Experience

Sadly, during the flight, the flight attendant watched everyone like a proctor and strictly prohibited phone use, so I couldn’t take photos during flight.

Wi-Fi is available onboard. During check-in, ground staff give you a personal access code; in flight, you can go online by using your name, seat number, and the code. The connection speed is not bad. On this 787-9, the lighting is a strong point, and the windows are too. Instead of a blind, it uses five levels of light/transparency adjustment, kind of like tint film on a car window, so you can set your preferred amount of light.

Of course, even a strict proctor gets sleepy sometimes. At mealtime, while the attendant was serving food, I secretly took out my phone and snapped some shots. Hungry people are like that wherever they are.

This is the appetizer. It was actually quite good, right? Such a huge abalone!

I’ll say nothing about the main course... Flight attendant, can we return this and give me two abalone instead?

Fruit.

A little snack after waking from a nap.

Does anyone recognize these noodles? Fuzhou-style fish noodles—haha, it tastes like home.

Two hours before landing came a full meal.

The smoked salmon was barely acceptable, but those two lychee meatballs were not; one of them was still ice-cold.

Hehehe, attendant, please change this too—give me two more abalone, thank you!!!

The food wasn’t great, but it still seemed better than Air China’s “Daily Selection.” They also changed the tableware each time the meal changed, and at least that detail was handled well.

Summary

  • Overall, this trip was fairly satisfying. I didn’t feel very tired; with no layover, it saved roughly four to five hours total, and the departure/arrival scheduling was excellent.
  • Redeeming for 95,000 is not really worth it, but since my balance is so big, I’d treat it as an occasional one-off. If I need to fly again, I’d choose to buy a paid roundtrip business ticket.
  • It is hard to justify a strict no-phone rule. Other domestic carriers also ask everyone to turn off devices, but even in business class they tend to look the other way and don’t monitor so aggressively.
  • Aside from the full-cabin announcement in Fuzhou dialect, I didn’t see many Fuzhou-specific elements. Maybe make an announcement in Fuzhou once? Add a Fuzhou channel to the entertainment system?
  • Arrival at JFK used Terminal 4, which was one of the easiest terminals I’ve seen for customs and baggage claim. I carried everything—both what should and shouldn’t be carry items—and nobody asked or checked anything.