Just a reminder of when I was stuck in Xiamen owing to a PLAAF exercise.
It was now past 18.00 hrs and still no sign of the airspace being opened. In fact ATC were sure that it was going to be closed all night. I was just about to call it a day when our Chinese engineer came in with a slab of Coke and a carton of Marlborough. Jing took them off him and started handing them around the room. Five minutes later the one I assumed was SATCO came in with an enroute chart with a track pencilled in direct from Xiamin to a Shenzhen approach procedure entry point. This was apparently a ‘special route’ that had been cleared for us to use. Jing worked out the times, we put in the flight plan and twenty minutes later we launched into the night.