brappy!

Posted by arion at 03:19 PM | Permalink

Posted by arion at 04:15 PM | Permalink

Posted by arion at 01:14 PM | Permalink

Just what no one suspected, it looks like Hawaiian Airlines and Aloha are claiming that without Mesa Air's go! creating artificially low fares, regular interisland fares would rise, sometimes even doubling.

Fares will rise without go!

Hawaiian Airlines President Mark Dunkerley has acknowledged interisland fares will go up if his airline wins its case against Mesa Air Group and go! airlines pulls out of Hawaii.

Continue reading "A return to the duopoly?" »

Posted by arion at 03:38 PM | Permalink

Stupidity in the skies, or rather, in Congress. Is this a bid to make in-flight movies even worse?

"Under federal legislation introduced yesterday, airlines that show adult-themed movies on overhead screens would be required to create seating sections to shield children from graphic content.

The legislation was prompted by complaints from parents and others who said airlines were increasingly showing movies and television reruns with sexual content and violence to in-flight audiences that include children, said a spokesman for Representative Heath Shuler, Democrat of North Carolina, one of two authors of bill, the Family Friendly Flights Act."

See: Bill to Restrict In-Flight Movies - New York Times

Posted by arion at 01:27 PM | Permalink

arriving from Glasgow, originally uploaded by brappy★.

I just love the 747-400. This is a Cargolux flight from Glasgow, heading toward SEA.

Posted by arion at 04:56 PM | Permalink

declaration, originally uploaded by brappy!.

Vancouver is a nice airport, but in my opinion, it's a ridiculous place to transit when you go Intl-to-US. Here are the steps it requires:

• Get off plane. Show passport on the jetway to the Canada Immigration officers (passport check one).
  
• Walk a long way to the immigration queue (just building at 10.40 a.m. and about to get to be over 500 people). As I'm arriving on Air China, I'm not allowed to do the direct US transit option and have to legally enter Canada.
• Clear immigration controls (passport check 2).
• Wait for bags.
• Clear customs (passport check 3).
• Find unmarked elevator and take it with 70 pounds of luggage to the third floor check in for US flights.
  
• Check in with Alaska Airlines (passport check 4).
• Stand in 1 km line to clear US immigration, having my passport checked again (check #5).
• Clear US immigration (check 6).
• Clear US customs (passport check 7)
• Drop off luggage, walk 15 minutes to gate. Find out flight is cancelled, get on next flight an hour later.
  
• Board plane (passport check 8).
  

Eight passport checks? That's the last thing I want after an eleven-hour flight.
Let's contrast with transiting Narita after flying in from, say, Taipei:

Arrive in Narita (Tokyo), go to security, show passport and boarding pass. Go to gate, then get on plane when it's time to board. When arriving in Seattle: go to immigration, show passport, go to customs, show passport, dump bags on a belt, then take a train to the main terminal baggage claim. Wait five minutes, and bags arrive. Much easier, for me.

For others, I know it's not this simple, but this organization at YVR is RIDICULOUS and irritating. I'll think twice about connecting in YVR in the future - Narita is just so much easier.

Posted by arion at 12:03 PM | Permalink

After an uneventful return to Beijing (although I did have to see Hero 英雄 on a plane again), I rested for a day, didn't do anything and got ready to head back to Seattle via Vancouver.

Monday night, I was leaving dinner and got in a taxi where the driver didn't know how to operate a stick-shift. He appeared to be covering a shift for someone who knew how to drive a taxi properly. As we headed toward the 3rd Ring Road going 30km/h in 3rd gear, I realized that this would not do... and got in another one.

The next morning, I was taking a taxi (again - my life in Asia seems to be short periods of living interrupted by long rides in taxis, but I love it), and we got stuck in traffic 2 Km from the airport entrance. After about ten minutes of driving on the shoulder, I saw a five-car pileup in the left lane; three taxis and two passenger cars had collided. 

Upon arriving at the airport, I saw a Turkmenistan Airlines jet readying for departure. Sadly, I couldn't get a photo of it.

Checking in at PEK is bizarre. Going into the Int'l Departures area, you first fill out a customs form, pass customs officers, then go to the ticketing hall to check in. If you're flying a major carrier, you have to search through many rows of check-in desks to figure out where your flight (and class of service) is checking in. After checking in, you then head through Immigation control, then security and presto, you're in the terminal.

My flight left on time and was pretty uneventful.

PEK airport logo

Beer left in the airport

Waiting in the airport...

PEK has a lot of cargo traffic across Asia

Air China tails

Yanjing Beer

Duck for dinner? Only on Air China!

Air China did show the worst movie I'd seen in a while - The Astronaut Farmer, a ridiculous, badly done story about a former astronaut who builds his own spacecraft in rural Texas. Say what?!

Posted by arion at 11:37 AM | Permalink

Flying out of Taiwan Taoyuan International Aiport for Hong Kong...

The old Terminal One, captured in a wide-angle lens. It's modelled after Dulles International Airport in DC.

Good Morning, China Airlines! Lots of big planes ready for a busy day of flying...I love airports in the morning. The light is great and there's this newness in the air...

My reflection in the airshow display, showing me clearly over the Taiwan strait.

Flying through a typhoon, we were at 38,000 feet and still in clouds. It was crazy, and bumpy.

But I still got my "Oriental" vegetarian meal [1]

[1] I'm not a vegetarian, but I think meat doesn't travel well on airplanes, especially long-haul flights. It just gets gross at the end. I'll soon blog my encounters with duck on an airplane flight. Yuck.

Posted by arion at 02:31 PM | Permalink

China Eastern, originally uploaded by brappy!.

I have put this off for too long... but I need to tell the story of my experience at the Xi'an Airport.
I arrived plenty early for my 9.45a flight to Guangzhou and checked in. I cleared security with no problems and sat, waiting for my flight to board. At 9.35a, an announcement was made: my flight was now delayed until 2 o'clock!

I had been making all of these snotty jokes inside my head about how China Eastern flights are ALWAYS late. It's kind of true. Go to any airport that has MU flights and you'll soon see that their flights are the ones that are massively delayed everywhere. At Xi'an, the announcements were even better - "MU flight blah blah blah to Bayjin (sic) is delayed due to airline." Ain't that the truth. It was also rather odd that the announcements, clearly done by a native Mandarin speaker and non-native English speaker pronounced Beijing in a way I've never heard. Only when I heard the announcement in Japanese did I get it.

That'll teach me to make jokes at other's expense! Seriously!

After an hour, and some discussion with the non-English speaking staff, I decided to wait for my flight. Around 10.30, a man rounded us up and told us we were going to a hotel as the flight was now delayed until tomorrow... or whenever.

Since I had confirmed reservations on China Airlines from Hong Kong that evening, it was imperative that I get to Guangzhou as early in the day. I made my way out to the ticket counter and worked my way into the throng of people. At the front of the clump, a man was yelling at a ticketing agent, and not getting much response from her. In frustration, he grabbed a stack of plastic cards off of the desk and threw them at her. Unphased, she kept typing away. A woman on my other side was screaming at full volume into my ear about her ticket. No one was helping her either. After a few minutes of this, I turned to the screaming woman and told her to "shut up! No one is listening to you!" She got quiet. I turned back and realized that everyone was staring at me.

I walked away and decided to go to the bathroom for a few minutes and wait for things to calm down.

After a bit, I was able to change my ticket to another airline (by getting one ticket refunded in cash and passing the cash to the next ticket clerk) and paid 300RMB more to go to Shenzhen, a few miles south of Guangzhou, instead.

My noon flight to Shenzhen left on time and was quite pleasant. There's a reason why they call China Southern the best-run airline in China.

On the plane, however, I was seated next to a stinky 80 year-old grandfather who had never been on a plane before. He didn't speak Mandarin or Cantonese. He was very much out of place. I had to put his seatbelt on for him after he tried to buckle it backwards... it was bizarre.

Shenzhen, city of Whores and Thieves, was pretty. Good weather had left the Pearl River Delta with a lot of clear skies and I was shocked, after being in Beijing and Xi'an, at how blue the sky could be. I really felt like things were looking up for me. But, alas, how wrong was I...

Posted by arion at 07:20 AM | Permalink

Shenyang Airport, originally uploaded by brappy!.

My flight from Vancouver took a diversion (due to bad weather) to the lovely airport at Shenyang (瀋陽) for a few hours. The staff didn't try much in the way of making announcements, although they did make an attempt to give us juice. I'm not sure what the deal was, but an Air Koryo jet was taking off (how cool!).

I just love the way the airport terminal looked.

Posted by arion at 06:01 PM | Permalink

Guess where I'm going?, originally uploaded by brappy!.

I'm all packed, and ready to go!

Posted by arion at 06:39 PM | Permalink