China Eastern Promises
Plenty of staff here at that's Beijing's offices have had nightmare experiences traveling with China Eastern Airlines. Below, Urbane editor and that's Beijing staff writer Alex Pasternack waxes lyrical on the troubles he had with the airline when returning to Beijing earlier this month.
True, it was I who failed to realize that 0100, in the arcane clock of the military, Europeans and airline tickets, is actually in the deep of night, not midday. When I realized this, it was just as the nightly news was starting, or 2300 hours, which is a good time to get frantic for about 30 seconds, imagining jumping into a taxi with half-opened bags dangling from your fingers, a jacket tied around your neck, shoes on your hands, ticket in your mouth. It's also just not enough time to get there.
Two days is enough time, and that's when I was re-booked. I got to the airport some two hours before even boarding and knew immediately upon arriving at China Eastern's ticket counter that this would be a packed flight. According to the woman at the other end of a phone line, a doctor's note (for the – ahem – car accident I was in) would ensure that I would not have to pay a re-booking fee. However, according to a man at the other side of a ticket desk: "normally you wouldn't have to pay, but because your new ticket is L class, and your original ticket was W class, you, I'm afraid, will need to pay $450." I argued with a manager; I consulted my parents. An hour later, after handing over a credit card and my passport, they finally waived the fee. I was one of the last to check in and rushed, at last, to my seat, which was at the very back of the plane.
When I realized that that all this franticness was much ado about nothing, it was well past 0100 two days later, and the plane was far from leaving. Very far from leaving, a mechanically dysfunctional engine away.
Being on an airplane is a bit like kindergarten. Crankiness, naps, and, when you wake up, sandwiches. The crew treats you like the babies you often are, and you generally have to do what they say. But when, all of a sudden, they don't say anything except, "Sorry, but you have to leave now," things can get really bad. You get scared. If you've no idea where to go, your parents aren't there to console you, so you might even start to yell.
When non-Americans get mad, and especially Italians and Chinese (but rarely British), they do it in a way I find delectably dramatic, not just because they have a certain flair and exhibit a real talent for theatre verite, but also because they're righteously expressing their feelings to those who deserve to know them. That's what happened. The crew just sort of stared at a few of the passengers, who were demanding to know what they were going to do with twelve hours to kill until the make-up flight. Eventually, we got off the plane, moved past some security guards into the vacant airport (a la Stephen King's Langoliers), and waited in line for another hour while the crew assigned us to hotels, where I got three hours of shut-eye before a phone call from another passenger (not the airline, strangely enough) informed me that we were soon boarding.
Back at the gate, the mood was a bit chipper, perhaps because it was generally assumed that everything that could have gone wrong already had; this time, surely, there would be no problem. Patience wore thin as the appointed hour came and went. But soon potato chips and Pepperidge Farm cookies and water were brought forth from the airplane and distributed to the masses, who were by now sprawling all around the gate. When the pilots and crew arrived, looking disconcertingly ragged and faded, some people began to move enthusiastically toward the gate. The door was opened. That's when the shouting began again. It was one man, yelling something about "standing up for our rights!"
The demand was simple: pay us remuneration now, in US dollars, or we won't board. The China Eastern staff stayed away. A crowd formed, and grew louder. When a short, suited representative of China Eastern appeared, looking like the picture of corporate intransigence, the crowd surrounded him with demands, questions and pointed fingers. He looked each accuser down, saying nothing, appearing to listen. He gave me the impression he had trained for this. Just let them yell, let them yell until they can't yell anymore and they give up and have nothing to do but what you tell them to do. A policewoman showed up to disperse the crowd, but that didn't work.
Eventually, a man working for the airport who had been involved since the night before made a final, exasperated boarding call. "We're closing the gates! If you don't get on the plane now, you're not going!" I stood there watching the scene, hovering between the people and the man. I was standing next to a woman who was doing the same thing, and who turned out to be a lawyer based in Shanghai. "What chance do these people have of suing China Eastern," I asked (this had been one of the crowd's threats, with mention of that local, four-day-old Passengers Bill of Rights). "I think we all deserve something, but we have no chance," she said. She picked up her toddler son and boarded, and I followed.
Had your own run in with China’s worst airline? Feel free to leave a comment below.