Sunday, November 2, 2008

China Southern airlines

Today I took off for Manila. I arrived at the airport a bit too early but didn't really know how long it would take to go through the customs, security, etc. I checked in quite fast and asked where the lounge was. Luckily I was travelling business and thought the best way to wait is to work peacefully in the lounge. Except that my so called direct flight to Manila from Beijing actually had a stop over in Xiamen (if you don't know where that is, me neither) Consequence, no customs in Beijing, but a separate terminal for people in transfer. This meant no lounge :( I spent almost 2 hours waiting in a terminal empty with only seats, toilets and a place to buy drinks. No food, no duty free, no wireless :( I started to wonder why I was traveling business. I know it sounds like I'm complaining a lot for not much, but the access to the lounge is one of the reason you pay (P&G pays 1000 euros for my trip).
3 hours after leaving Beijing we landed in Xiamen. They made us leave the aircraft, go through the customs and 20minutes later board in the same aircraft... still wondering why we couldn't do that in Beijing. Next time, I'll choose the non direct flight with a connection in Hong-Kong where at least you can kill time doing shopping.

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