back of the bus

When we left for Hong Kong from Shanghai on Tuesday morning, we sat at the back of the bus. Once in a while, got to "remind" ourselves how fortunate we could do the Biz Class. Our seats were cramp and tight. Good to make sure we have a fit body though. People were bumping with big luggage passing by. Extreme morning bad breath that literally attacked your nostrils when that Chinese passenger open his mouth to speak or exhale. The women talking for 2 1/2 non-stop in Shanghainese, loud, about the upcoming shopping trip. And they were so self-absorbed that blocking the isle for other passengers to sit. Totally, chaotic.

But this flight we took departed early! Yes, early! Thanks to the typhoon cutting across Southern Taiwan and then into the ever so busy air corridor between Shanghai and Hong Kong. Our flight pushed off at 7:35am!!! Yes, 7:35am on a scheduled departure of 7:40am. I guess the pilots did not want to lose the slot. The typhoon affected a lot of domestic flights using the same air corridor. Or all the domestic pilots were afraid of flying in bad weather due to fake flight resumes. We landed at 10am. 20 minutes ahead of schedule! I liked it! But the China Eastern (MU) flight trying to land an hour later wasn't so lucky with 200 passengers aboard.

What happened was, our pilot said, before landing, "in an hour, wind will be very strong". As a matter fact, our landing was a bit harder than normal. The pilot had to accelerate a bit to keep the plane straight so wind would not knock us off the path. Anyway, the 11:00am MU flight tried to land in Hong Kong had to divert to Hainan Island (45 minutes) away due to "rough" weather. After sitting on the tarmac for about 2 hours, the MU flight tried again to land in Hong Kong. No luck due to "rough weather" announced the pilot. So he divert the flight to Xiaman about an hour north of Hong Kong. On the way to Xiaman, the flight had a sudden drop of altitude. Scared the living day lights out of the passengers. When the MU flight finally landed in Xiaman, the flight attendants could not contact the pilot in the cockpit. He cut the communication off! The plane was sitting on the tarmac for many more hours, I meant many hours. Finally the passengers were let off with compensation of a cup of noodle soup. No arrangement of forward flight schedules. No compensation. The flight ended in Xiaman and that was it. Welcome to flying here in the Motherland. Airline refused to compensate "due to weather". The flight attendants told some of the passengers quietly that the pilot might had a little "psyc" problem during the flight. More like, not equipped to fly. There were so many flights landed during the time that the MU pilot decided not to land due to "rough" weather.