...Almost Shanghai-ed!

Today was an eventful morning - when we were rushing from the airport hotel to the airport to catch the flight to Shanghai.

This is the reason why I think that considering China a great country is a bit premature. Take for example our incident in the morning.

Arriving early for check-in and after lining up for 20minutes, we were served by this woman at the check-in counter. She directed us to another counter for check-in. This is when I sense the falling sandbag.

There was this lady who duly informed me in her half-baked engrish that the ticket is not valid as we did not reconfirm with them. RECONFIRM? Why? This is an issued e-ticket that clearly state that it is CONFIRMED & RESERVED. The paper happen to mention it 3 times!

So WTF?
Arguing about 10 minutes later, the rather un-apologetic woman was hereby demanded by us to see their supervisor. 10 minutes later - still no word. Here we are stranded at the airport without a flight to make it to a meeting in 4 hours (the flight takes 2 hours) with the next flight departing way too late to get us there in in (it departs 2 hours later. 2+2 = 4 hours plus travelling time is way too late)

So i went further on the offensive - and finally after a 30minute ordeal, we finally got on the plane. But by then it was less than 20 minutes for the flight and the baggage is close. So we rushed across to the oversized baggage counter to get it in - quite a long distance - making it on the minute that service is closed for the flight. Then with 10 minutes remaining - it was the mad rush thru security and to a gate verily 500+ meters away!

So in the end we made it - but I carry away a distinct feeling that one of the premier airlines i.e. China Southern nearly shanghai-ed us - either by sheer incompetence or stupidity...

It appears that the much vaunted China - does have its incompetent side... and have a long long long way to catch up. Even with Malaysia...