In China, Flying Can Mean Roughing It

A young tortoise destined for the cooking pot tried but failed in a daring bid to escape during a recent domestic Chinese airline flight between Canton and Peking.

The intrepid animal, flying economy class in a frail cardboard box held by its owner, a teacher from Beijing, broke free shortly after takeoff and crawled between the feet of a startled woman sitting in front.

Order was restored when a male passenger seized the little creature and returned it to its box, safe until it landed in Beijing, where it was to be cooked.

The tortoise’s break for freedom ended amid relieved laughter from passengers and crew, but the incident brought to mind many other tales of comedy and frustration experienced by passengers on China’s state-run airline, CAAC.

The stories, including one about a goat tugged aboard an aircraft as carry-on luggage, are swapped at cocktail parties, business lunches or almost any gathering of Beijing’s foreign community.

China, advanced in satellite-launching technology, is only slowly coming to terms with mass air travel and the practices and standards taken for granted elsewhere.

Long List of Complaints

Overbooking, misplaced luggage, delayed or canceled flights, poor service and appalling hygiene standards in aircraft and airport toilets are among the litany of complaints leveled against the airline, which has a virtual monopoly on domestic flights.

CAAC stands for Civil Aviation Authority of China, but to many fliers it is also known as “China Airways Always Canceled.”

A passenger from New York who took a CAAC flight to Beijing complained about the bad service in a letter to the English-language China Daily.

“I was appalled by the service, or perhaps the lack of service,” he said. “In all my years of flying I have never (before) had a sandwich thrown at me. They have been handed to me, or passed to me, but never thrown at me.”

He also complained that flight attendants had commandeered rows of seats for their night’s sleep or for their foreign purchases.

“I did not observe one flight attendant so much as smile to anyone, other than their colleagues,” he said.

Passengers on a Shanghai-Beijing flight in December were flabbergasted when a fire broke out on board while the crew was roasting chestnuts.

“I saw flames on the floor behind a curtain dividing the cooking area from the first-class section,” said one British passenger on the flight. “It was paper used to wrap chestnuts being roasted in the oven and which the crew dropped on the floor.”

Matter of Etiquette

Airline officials say a major reason for shortcomings in service is the sudden surge in demand for air travel in recent years following the economic reforms begun in 1979. More and more Chinese are flying within the country, along with hordes of foreign business executives and tourists.

The pace has proved too fast for the airline and aviation authorities, who, to their credit, have taken steps to improve the situation, including revamping the outdated air traffic control system, building new airports and buying bigger and better aircraft.

Airline officials say another important aspect is to educate the many uninitiated Chinese travelers in the etiquette of air travel, including use of the toilets. On some flights, videos explaining toilet use have been shown.

On the tortoise flight, dozens of passengers were struggling with heavy loads of bananas, papayas and pineapples piled under their seats or on their laps.

For those who wish to complain, seasoned travelers who see the lighter side of flying over China recall and revise the slogan of another airline--”We never forget you have no choice.”