On August, 7th 2012, Typhoon Haikui hit Shanghai and neighboring Zhejiang province. But wait a minute… did I say Typhoon? I meant “Tropical storm” because, by the time it reached Shanghai, it was a tropical storm (not as bad as a typhoon, weaker winds mainly).
According to what I could read online, both on newspapers websites and social networks, it was “apocalypse”… but come on people, get a grip of yourselves… I wonder what they would write if they were living in places like Taiwan, Florida or the Caribbean, where real typhoons and hurricanes hit shores even more often.
Well I cannot tell you my own experience of Haikui because for me, it was clear skies and sunshine! I was actually on a business trip in Japan, for the opening of a Belgian Beer Café in Takashimaya – Shinjuku.
But still there was one major dark cloud in my sky, namely: Air China! I’m lost for words to describe what I think of them now… Usually, among chinese airlines, they are ahead of the pack, but gosh… this time, China Spring Airlines could have done better… (by far the worst airline in China).
First thing first: You cannot blame anyone to delay flights or cancel flights for a Typhoon… It’s part of the game (and well beyond anyone’s control, beside Chuck Norris of course), you take that risk anytime you fly. And I must say things like that have happened to me over the years and the frequent traveling (this year seems to be a record year for me, not even 8 months into the year and already 55 flights), but what you can criticize is the way airlines companies handle such situation. I would classify airlines into 2 categories: the customer centric ones, and the others. And a third category especially for Air China: the worst of the worst!
First problem: To announce the delay of the flight, I received the day before a few text messages in… Chinese. Because hey, of course, everyone speaks Chinese out there! And my name, my passport, my nationality would surely not have been good cues that I was a foreigner… but I guess no one speaks English at Air China? and the text messages kept coming and coming… luckily I have a few Chinese friends, and one of them was still awake at 1am and could help me translate. Lucky for me, because otherwise I would have made it to the airport at 7am instead of 11am…
Arriving at the airport I saw something I had never seen before: “departure time: indefinite”… I should have understood it as: “be prepared you will wait forever”… At that time, I was still in a good mood, so I took their meal voucher, treated myself to some nice sushi and then tried to kill time… I even took a nap in the sun, as Narita Airport has a nice rooftop observation deck. Really a plus for this airport! But I also took the time to have my air cut, and my beard trimmed and shaved! What an experience, it wasn’t a haircut, but an art performance! The guy used at least 15 different towels, did things to my hair I would have never expected… well, you know, Japanese style: “dans les règles de l’art…” But it took forever as well… I think he cut each hair one by one, to make sure they were all the same length…
After spending 2 hours of my time, it was only right to ask an update at the check-in counter… and of course they had no update… that’s exactly when it started to get worse and worse… every half hour they kept pushing back the expected departure time, and kept us waiting there without any info… the other airlines had already cancelled the flights departing around the same time a while before. But no, Air China, was still trying to have us fly…
I was still receiving text messages directly from the airline in Beijing on my chinese mobile, and I had to inform the ground staff that after 10 hours waiting in the airport the flight was finally cancelled! I rebooked a flight the next day, and went straight back to time where I treated myself to a nice dinner, with a cocktail and a cigar (Mad Men style) to recover from such a frustrating day…
But I was really out of luck. The day after, after working the whole morning at the hotel, I arrived at the airport, to realize that the flight departure time was “indefinite” again… I don’t easily get mad at people, but this time, it was too much… They finally upgraded me so I could at least wait in the airport lounge, a nice gesture, but I couldn’t care less about it, as I really wanted to get back to Shanghai where I was suppose to take one of my best friend out for her birthday…
The bottom line is: Please Air China, you have what it takes to become a great airline, just please put customers at the center of your concerns!
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In any case, the Great Wall is such a stunning sight that going there for the 3rd time wasn’t a problem at all.
