Hell ride

The state of our national airline - I am talking about the maple leaf one. The plane was larger and better when i started flying across the Pacific Ocean to the M0the r L@nd. 777 large comfortable and clean. Then... 767. Smaller... now dirtier! Worse than MU here! As I sat down on a highly priced premium seat, I was afraid to touch anything. Thick food and dust on every nooks and cranny. Do I want to lie flat sleeping under that kind of cleanliness ? I think NOT! My seat made creaking sound when I tried to recline. Loud. I was afraid to disturb the neighbours!

Tonight. Wow.. my flight was to depart Shanghai at 6:15pm. Checked in at 4:45pm. Flight delayed till 7:30pm due to schedule maintenance. How the heck you do that? O well... 7:15pm... 7:30pm... 8:00pm ..... 8:30pm.... 9:00pm... You got the picture. I was bad when I saw the plane was not connected to the bridge. Then I didn't see any crew. And the staff started handing out dinner vouchers. O no...

The ground staff, as typical Chinese one with "good" leadership skills, was pathetic! I could not blame them. After all, you only knew so much with what you got trained. Bad. I anticipated a problem if and when the crew showed up. There were some loud mouth pieces that instigate the mood. And bloody Canadians too! Shame on them.

We took off at 11:30pm or so. Then had to turn back and landed again in Shanghai. Nose landing gear could not retract. By then, some passengers wanted to get off. With that, we had to wait MUCH longer to locate the luggage and extract them. I believe we took off by 1:30pm or so. I slept. The food didn't entice me a bit. We had our "breakfast" at 7:15pm Vancouver time in flight. Right.... I just played around with it. B'fast congee or Omelette. Both were equally appetizing. I tried the congee. The chicken meat tasted "funny".

Compensation for the delay... 100RMB food voucher at Shanghai airport because I am an Elite member. Otherwise, 70RMB.

O yeah, speaking of Elite. Aeroplan sent me an email saying if I don't fly the Maple Leaf, I will lose all my points by May 1 next year. Nice loyalty program. Is that loyalty really?