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Friday, February 25, 2005 |
This morning I arrived at Pudong airport to check in for the KLM flight
to Amsterdam. There was a huge line waiting at the check-in desks, not
only the economy counters but also the business class. I soon found out
what had happened: KLM had cancelled the flight. It was a huge mess,
none of the ground staff seemed to be able to handle the situation, and
at first only 3 counters were open. I waited patiently in line, but
after about 20 minutes I realized that with the speed the ground staff
was handling passengers I would probably have to wait 4-5 hours to get
rebooked on another flight. I also realized that there were only two
more options to get to Europe today, the Air China to Frankfurt and
Virgin to London, both leaving around 13:30 (it was 11 AM by now). Not
good if you have important meetings planned on Saturday morning.
Because I noticed that the business class line where I was waiting was
also used by economy passengers I decided to walk up to the counter and
ask for an explanation for that. I have a Platinum Elite card from the
KLM, which is normally not very useful, but in this case it certainly
helped. Together with two other PE cardholders they let us go to the
front of the line right away! Of course other people also noted this
and soon a second Platinum Elite line formed. Understandably not all
other passengers were happy with that (I also would not have been).
Standing in front of the line I found out why it took so long to
rebook. The inexperienced staff were asking passengers which airline
they would prefer to take, instead of just rebooking for them. Then of
course discussions started about how long it would take to get to the
final destination (many people use Amsterdam as a hub to transfer to
another destination). Anyway, I got a seat on Air China and because my
final destination is Munich I will even arrive earlier than planned!
7:48:30 PM 
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I noted today how much advertising Air China has on its
intercontinental flights. Not only the ads in the in-flight magazines
(High quality glossy paper filled for at least 80% with ads for
expensive goods and new houses and apartments in China[base ']s biggest
cities), but also many ads on the movie screen. Before the first movie
started at least 10 minutes of ads. When the drinks came I noticed that
the tables when opened also have ads on it (for plasma TV[base ']s), both on
the in- and the outside. And then the drinks, they are served out of
paper cups with the Yanjing beer logo on it. During the meal Great Wall
wines put their ads on the screen, and of course the wine being served
on board is Great Wall wine.
7:46:37 PM
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Although I would have preferred to fly KLM or Lufthansa, the service on
board Air China is quite good. If you press the flight attendents
button they are there within 30 seconds. On KLM flights it happened to
me that nobody shows up at all. Air China staff is also creative: when
the cabin light right above me could not be turned off due to some
electronical problem they gave me an eye mask!
7:45:09 PM
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Because I had a bit of a headache, I asked the flight attendent for an
aspirin. It took a few minutes before she came back with a plastic tube
with several pills in it. However, before I could take it I had to sign
form that they were not responsible for side-effects, and that I would
take the medicine at my onwn risk. Because the description on the label
was only in Chinese I asked her (in English) if it was for headaches.
She said yes. Knowing a little bit about how Chinese answer questions,
I now asked her the question in Chinese. She answered that was for high
fever, but not for headaches. But because they did not have anything
else they wanted to give me this. I kindly thanked her and just drank a
glass of water!
7:44:40 PM
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© Copyright 2005 Marc van der Chijs.
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