Asian Airports: A Rant

I have lived in Asia for nearly eight months now and by no means consider myself an expert. However. If there's one piece of advice I can offer the new-to-Asia traveller, it's this: never expect to leave when your ticket says you will.  Ever.  

This most likely comes down to legislation that exists in the US and Europe.  There, airlines are charged fees for flights that miss their departure time.  The fees are generally pretty huge.  This is not the case in Asia and what's more people don't expect their flights to leave on time.  They often show up to check in 30 minute before a flight.  Cab drivers laugh derisively if you tell them you'd like to be at the airport even an hour before departure.  

And from the Philippines to China to Thailand to Malaysia, people just sit down and deal with the fact that their planes won't leave on time. Most airlines don't give announcements either so passengers wait in a state of limbo.  And they wait patiently.  

This leads me to my second piece of advice (sorry, I said there was only one--I lied): Despite bit of advice number one, always be there when your ticket says the flight should leave.  It won't.  But: your gate might change; your plane might change; your flight might get cancelled; you might get rerouted; you might, but probably won't, receive a voucher for a snack (in China, this snack is a can of fizzy pear juice and a packet of crackers) which you will gratefully receive because the rest of the airport's shops have shut down two hours earlier.   

So my last piece of advice:  Don't try to apply logic to the situation.  It won't exist.  Weather that doesn't exist in your area of departure, arrival or anywhere in between might stop you; a flock of pigeons flying too closely to the runway might delay your journey;  the Philippine president might want to land at the airport and the military might close airspace in a ten-mile radius around said airport without informing anyone there; there's traffic on the runway because of all of the other delayed flights.   

Sadly, I'm not making any of these stories up.  On a school trip from Shanghai to Xining, we had a seven-hour delay due to 'weather',  My favourite moment happened over the tannoy: 'Ladies and gentlemen, the 6pm flight to Xining will now be leaving at 8pm.'  I looked down at my watch.  It was already 8:30.  That was our first and last announcement. 

On a different occasion, on our flight back from Manila via Hong Kong, we sat on the plane for two hours as engineers tried to resolve a mechanical fault.  Once resolved, we continued to wait and wait and wait in a semi-recumbent position with the engine and therefore air-conditioning off.  Two more hours passed before a pissed-off pilot approached the mic to rant to us that, Surprise! the Philippine president was en-route to grace Manila airport with his presence.  Surprise! the military has commandeered the runway and the airspace.  Unsurprisingly, we missed our connecting flight and were stranded in Hong Kong overnight.  

The silver lining?  Paul and I got 75 Hong Kong dollars each to spend at the airport restaurants.  Mine stretched to a large salad; inflation doesn't favour health food.  But Paul ate his body weight in McDonald's.  Though regret came later, the brief mania of MSG and water-injected meat-like substances bought his happiness. 

Sadly, the ultimate message i've learned in all of this almost seems a blasphemy; Ryanair is a beacon of light sent down from heaven.  It comes with the annoying 'you've landed on time' music but there it is, you've landed on time. 

Magical, magical words.