Giant Detour

Just when I thought my nightmare of dealing with Hainan Airlines (see "The Long Road Home" dated January 4) was over, I had to deal with the airline's subsidiary, Tianjin Airlines for a flight to Xian this morning.

The airline, which was launched last June, has a goofy looking cartoon dragon for a logo, which makes it hard to take seriously.

Our flight was scheduled for 8:55am, but when we got to the gate we had to take a shuttle that seemed to take us far away... to a small plane on the tarmac. The three flight attendants weren't wearing the usual shirt, scarf around the neck, slacks and blazer. Instead they wore sportswear by Chinese brand Erke, a copy of Li Ning, which is a copy of Nike. So they were wearing track suits, casual pants and sweat shirts. Again how can an airline be professional with staff wearing casual gear?

A flight from Beijing to Xian should only take an hour and a half. My colleague had booked the tickets and we didn't realize until two hours into the flight that we were landing in Zhong Wei, a small town in Ningxia Province!  When we landed, we were the only plane there at the gate which looked very new. We made a literal pit stop at the loo before re-boarding again.

It reminded me of taking a bus tour to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, where we had to stop at the cloisonne factory on the way... but this time we were taking a detour on a plane...

This just shows how some airlines will do just about anything for business. How much actual revenue passengers will bring to Zhong Wei for literally stopping by seems hard to justify building a small airport...

In the end we finally arrived to Xian at 1pm. Now we have to check our return tickets to see if we make another detour back to Beijing...