[turtle777]

Hello Lounge, I need to vent.

AAaaaararrrggh

So on my trip back from the Philippines, I needed to connect through Beijing. I had a bad feeling about this, but unfortunately, that was the only connection I got. Well, my bad feeling should not be disappointed.

What the freaking f*ck ?

• International transfer took me two (!!!1!1one) hours
• The security personnel doing the security checks is a bunch of retarded untrained 18 year olds. And none of them speaks English. Seriously. I asked for a supervisor / boss / manager, they did not understand me. Just giving me a stupid smile.
• No liquid tiolletry items allowed AT ALL in carry-ons. Special new regulation for China. So I had to go back and check my carry-on.
• The Business Lounge does NOT have wireless internet. You need to use Ethernet. For Pete's sakes, it's 2008.
• ALL the coke in the fridges of the Business Lounge are warm. No cold Coke. WTF ? The US need to invade intervene.
• Oh and one more thing: air conditioning in the terminal building ? You wish. It's probably 75F in here.

I'm so pissed of, unbelievable. It's my first time in China, and it proved all my prejudices fears to be right.

I will definitely not transfer through China again.

-t

[Big Mac]

Sorry you didn't have a good experience, turtle. I enjoyed the week I spent in China. The worst parts were the flight there, followed by the flight back (my legs were so cramped and pained I almost wanted to detach them from my body), then the food, which I did not find palatable. Other than that it was a great experience, but I probably also had lower expectations than you did. The only trouble I had with airport security was when they insisted on opening up and sniffing one of my sealed WoW Coke cans that I was saving as a souvenir. . .

[turtle777]

Well, my expectations for transferring through an international airport were not high, but I didn't expect this.

To be fair: the new Terminal is nice, it looks great, has lots of space. But the untrained security, lack of A/C, warm coke and other crap just doesn't cut it. Good luck to the thousands of people arriving here this summer.

-t

[nonhuman]

Dude, calm down. That honestly doesn't sound like a particularly bad international tranfer experience at all, nor are any of those problems Chinese things. The same is true in most places in the world including parts of Europe and the US.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

Dude, calm down. That honestly doesn't sound like a particularly bad international tranfer experience at all, nor are any of those problems Chinese things. The same is true in most places in the world including parts of Europe and the US.

It's the worst I've ever had, and I travel a bit.
I'm sweating like a pig right now, waiting for my flight. That should be fun in the plane, where they probably crank up the A/C to 40F.

And warm Coke and no Wifi in the Business Lounge ? WTF ? I'm paying for Business Class, and I get this ?

-t

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

And warm Coke and no Wifi in the Business Lounge ? WTF ? I'm paying for Business Class, and I get this ?

-t

Where do you usually travel that you're used to anything different?

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

Where do you usually travel that you're used to anything different?

On this trip, Manila and Nagoya. Both had WiFi and much better food and drink selection in the Business Lounge. Japan I sort of expected, but Manila topping Beijing ? Especially since the Lounge in Beijing is brand new, and ready to host the Olympics. They could have done much better.

-t

[moonmonkey]

Turtle, I think Beijing is the worst major airport in the world with Shanghai a close second, it looks pretty but is the biggest POS, typical of the way they run things in the mainland.

"A perfect replica of a working airport" is the best description I have heard.

[voodoo]

@OP

Two hour international transit annoys you? Don't go through Heathrow then, you might implode with anger.

UK international transit: worth paying extra for to avoid.

[Cipher13]

So you're judging all of China based on Beijing airport?

Hong Kong airport is fine, apart from its immensity which proves to be quite a chore when it comes to international transfers.

[ctt1wbw]

And watchout for that liquid Brute aftershave! That's what the 9/11 hijackers used to overpower those flight attentands and pilots!

[MacosNerd]

Jeez it doesn't take much to get under your shell.

Everything you wrote individually or in total do not equate to that much. so you didn't have wireless, I've got news for you, many airports in the US do not even have ethernet, never mind wireless. So your coke was warm, please They didn't speak english - the nerve of them not learning a foreign language to suit your needs. China has little need or desire to bend to foreign values or wishes.

[ctt1wbw]

Unless you are a reporter at CNN and talk bad about them, then they expect an apology and you to kiss their ass...

[Oisín]

They didn't speak english - the nerve of them not learning a foreign language to suit your needs. China has little need or desire to bend to foreign values or wishes.

Um, yes they do. The Chinese are doing more bending to foreign values and wishes than pretty much anyone else these days.

And this is an international airport; the biggest airport in China (in size) and the biggest airport in all of Asia (in number of flights). You would expect staff at such an airport to be able to speak at the very least the lingua franca of the world, which happens to be English at the moment. Yet you’d be lucky to find a single person (not just security staff, but including business lounge staff, information desk staff—everyone) who speaks more than two words of any other language than Chinese. A few speak a little Japanese, but that’s it. While you’re airside, half the signs aren’t even in any other language than Chinese.

Beijing Airport is a horrible airport, it’s true. I haven’t even seen the new terminal yet, but from what I’ve been told, it’s barely better than the old ones.

Shanghai is a lot better, I think, but still plagued by many of the same issues.

[Sherman Homan]

For a true third world hellhole experience take the Blue line to Logan then the shuttle to LaGuardia.
It is faster and cheaper to drive!

[ctt1wbw]

I wonder if they'll protest the Torch in Beijing?

[Mithras]

Warm coke and wired Ethernet! The horrors!

[moonmonkey]

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

So you're judging all of China based on Beijing airport?

Hong Kong airport is fine, apart from its immensity which proves to be quite a chore when it comes to international transfers.

Hong Kong is not in Mainland China, not till 2047 anyway.

[osiris]

Never had a problem at PEK, but I've always landed at late hours when it was pretty empty.
What sucks is the rush of smog when you go outside the airport.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by osiris 

Never had a problem at PEK, but I've always landed at late hours when it was pretty empty.
What sucks is the rush of smog when you go outside the airport.

In my personal experience, that’s far worse in Shanghai. I didn’t have much of a problem with it first time I came to Beijing (and that was in late August = worst smog time there is, apart from July), but when we landed in Shanghai, I spent the first 30 minutes coughing up half of my lungs because of the intense smog. And that was in December.

And of course it used to be a cause of annoyance that they wouldn’t let the cheap taxis park anywhere near the airport, at least in Beijing, but probably in Shanghai too. You were stuck with the expensive ones. But now the cheap ones have disappeared completely, so that’s not an issue anymore, though I rather dislike the way they solved it.

[osiris]

Health concerns aside, it really is a sight at 2am in the summer whilst on the highway.
At first I thought it was fog, but fog doesn't fall to the ground as semi-fine dust.

[Oisín]

I just kept wondering when we were going to be getting near to the ground, since I could see faint silhouettes of skyscrapers lurking here and there through the clouds/smog.

Turned out they were regular houses, not skyscrapers, and suddenly I could see the ground—twenty feet below the plane! Barely registered it was there till we’d touched down. That sort of scared me a bit.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

Everything you wrote individually or in total do not equate to that much. so you didn't have wireless, I've got news for you, many airports in the US do not even have ethernet, never mind wireless.

It's the freaking BUSINESS LOUNGE, where you PAY to get access. Don't you think you can expect more than wired internet there ?

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

They didn't speak english - the nerve of them not learning a foreign language to suit your needs.

They had a SPECIAL security check lane for ALL people on flights to the US. So EVEREYONE going to the US had to go through this one (yes, only ONE) check.

Don't you think they should put english speaking personnel in a dedicated US security check line ?

Here's part of my conversation with them:

Me: "Can I speak to your supervisor ?"
Security office #1: [blank stare]
Me: "Your boss, your manager !"
Security office #1: [blank stare]
Me: "Do you speak English ?"
Security office #1: [blank stare]

[on to the next]

Me: "Can I speak to your supervisor ?"
Security office #2: [blank stare]
Me: "Your boss, your manager !"
Security office #2: [stupid smile]
Me: "Do you speak English ?"
Security office #2: [continued stupid smile]

[on to the next]

Me: "Can I speak to your supervisor ?"
Security office #3: [stupid smile]
Me: "Your boss, your manager !"
Security office #3: [blank stare]
Me: "Do you speak English ?"
Security office #3: "Yes, little."
Me: "Do you see the huge line ? You need to open another check lane !"
Security office #3: [big smile] "Yes, yes, thank you, thank you."

WTF ?

-t

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Mithras 

Warm coke and wired Ethernet! The horrors!

As I said, BUSINESS LOUNGE !

If that's the best they can offer to business people in China, good luck.

-t

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

@OP

Two hour international transit annoys you?

Can you read ?

It took me literally 120 minutes from leaving my plane to arriving at the gate of my connecting flight. Time spent waiting, waiting, walking, walking, waiting, waiting, walking, waiting, walking, waiting, trying to communicate in English, walking, waiting, waiting, trying to communicate in English, walking etc.

I don't know about London, but I have never seen anything like that.

And good luck this summer once you have tons of tourists coming in.

-t

[Oisín]

^ That would definitely happen in places like LHR and CDG, too. It happened to me in CDG once, while transferring for my flight to Beijing, ironically.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

^ That would definitely happen in places like LHR and CDG, too. It happened to me in CDG once, while transferring for my flight to Beijing, ironically.

Oh, I won't fight you on CDG. It's the worst airport in Europe.

And I don't want to compare it to Heathrow. Heathrow sucks right now because it's chaotic during a time of technical problems.

CDG always sucks, even if everything goes according to plan.

-t

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

And I don't want to compare it to Heathrow. Heathrow sucks right now because it's chaotic during a time of technical problems.

Fixinatedor.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Fixinatedor.

Well, let's see how it goes one year from now.

OTOH, you guys can always use the train through the Chunnel to go to CDG

*duck*

-t

[Andy8]

You guys need to transfer through Hanoi or New Delhi to really experience this type of fun

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Oh and one more thing: air conditioning in the terminal building ? You wish. It's probably 75F in here.

Really? You're complaining about 75 degrees? My parents always set our air conditioner at 78 during the summer, and that was fine. 75 is nothing.

[Oisín]

Hang on … 75°F is only 23°C!

Laminar’s right, that’s nothing. That’s actually a standard, comfortable temperature. I do believe there’s air conditioning there, though. I remember walking out of the plane first time I got there, and feeling like I’d hit a brick wall (38°C and heavy smog when coming from a 15°C icy plane will do that to you), but when we got inside in the airport, it was nice and cool.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

Hang on … 75°F is only 23°C!

Well, I must have gotten the conversion wrong. It felt like in the 26-28C range.
It was NOT outrageously hot, but hot enough for many people to complain about it.

-t

[Laminar]

Actually, I would complain about 75 degrees. During the winter I keep my place at 65 F (18C), we'll see what happens this summer. My rent and utilities are covered by my employer so I don't have to worry about being energy conscious.