The "service" industry in China

I've been meaning to give my 2 RMB on China's service industry and the problems China's ever-growing society faces. But after what happened yesterday (into today), I have to first talk about Flying in China!

Under normal circumstances, it should take around 3.5 hours to fly from Beijing to Hong Kong. But throw in a little drizzle and apparently China's airports/airlines can't handle it.

I arrived at the airport yesterday at around 2 PM for my 15:10 (4 PM) flight. I see the flight has already been delayed to 16:00. At the check-in counter I found out they gave away the seat I had reserved two days prior (an aisle seat in the middle of the plane) and instead gave me a seat in the second to last row. Questions of Why were met with vapid, uncaring looks. Finally, the guy mustered up a "you got here too late." The closing time for check-in was 2:25 PM, so clearly we were not "late". I wished my Chinese was better so I could clearly give him what was on my mind about the absurd situation. Fortunately my dad was with me and contributed sufficiently toward this cause. He offers up a middle seat closer to the front. Uh, gee thanks. I purposefully stall a bit, knowing the flight is delayed. So the great service I got is instead of an apology the guy gives me the second to last row seat and says let me know when you decide and walks away. It confirmed that most of the people in "service" roles in China have absolutely no sense of ownership nor care for customer satisfaction and experience (more on this!).

Proceeding to the gate I see the plane has not yet arrived. I ask the lady at the gate when it's arriving. She tells me 15:25, with boarding 10 minutes after, and tells me not to go too far. Some time after 16:00 I ask a different guy who's behind the counter now what the status is. He said the plane will be here in an hour plus. I ask if the plane has even departed yet. He tells me the plane "just took off". Forward on to 17:30, when the estimated time of departure is still officially displayed as "16:00". A followup reveals the plane is downed in an airport 40 minutes away but has pulled from the gates and is about to depart. Seriously? "Yes, really, so it'll be here in about an hour." Okay. Even though my original arrival time was 18:45, at least an 18:30 or so departure would get me to HK before or at midnight.

Guess what happens at 18:30? Yup. Nothing. Forward on to 19:30 when they finally update the estimated departure time from 16:00 (yes, 3.5 hours after the time had passed) to 20:50. Was this progress? Well, it seemed more "official" than verbal feces that had been provided earlier. I hoped against my better judgment that they (airline, airport, people in China) were being honest this time!

Another flight had been scheduled to depart from our gate and their new time was 20:15. But by 20:15, their plane wasn't here yet. I'm thinking I'll tack on however many minutes onto the time their flight is delayed to 20:50 to figure when our plane will arrive (maybe there's a standard quantity they add to get our hopes up just enough...). Then, a miracle! A concrete update! We were being switched from gate 5 to gate 15. Could our plane actually be here?

At gate 15 it indeed seemed like a plane was parked at the gate. Some of us get in line to wait. After 10 minutes, people come out! Poor fellow travelers who were supposed to get to Beijing 6 hours ago. 20:45 and still not boarding us. Finally, they do. Oh well, we'll miss the 20:50 take off, but hopefully they'll rush to get us going, right? RIGHT?

(I don't think I need to answer that) As we're all buckled in and ready to go, an announcement on the plane along the lines of "Delay due to air traffic control. Appreciate your patience." I decide to just take a nap and hope the nightmare will end. I think we finally pull out from the gate 20-30 minutes later but then sit on the runaway a bit more. When we finally get some speed going and are taking off I check my watch and see that it's 22:00.

We land around 01:30. Get off the plane fairly quickly. I stop and find a courtesy phone to call my unfortunate host that I've finally arrived. I then proceed to immigration (one of the last people), followed by baggage claim. Some luggage are circulating out there but lots of people are waiting. Then no new luggage comes out. There's an announcement in Cantonese. Then in "English." All we could understand was "delay". We ask an airport official what's going on. "Oh, it's the weather. If it's raining the luggage guys can't go out to get the luggage." I am ready to laugh at the absurdity. Some other foreigners start yelling and cursing a bit.

Around 2:30 my luggage appears! I didn't recognize it at first because the luggage strap I used to tie around it isn't on it. Hrm. I wait a minute to see if it comes and realize it's not worth it. I also am annoyed that complaining obviously will get me nothing (compared to in the states where they'll at minimum apologize and own up to screwing up and maybe even offer something to make up for it).

Get to the taxi stand and tried to communicate in English where I needed to go. After 15 minutes and a phone call to my host, the driver said he knew where to go. He was a nice guy from Indonesia and writing a book so he asked me for my thoughts on the topic. I was tired but decided I might as well stay awake and chat with him (and make sure he takes me to the right place).

Around 3:15 I get to my friend's place. Got to bed at 3:50.

On the upside, I made it to a place where the Internet is uncensored and I can access blogspot. =)