Ben n I took a Qatar Airways flight back to Dubai from Singapore, via Doha on 12th March. We left Singapore at 6.35am (GMT +8) and arrived in Doha at 10.15am (GMT +3). We discovered that our connecting flight to Dubai was delayed, from 1.30pm to 8.00pm.
The guy at the Transfer Counter said that the delay was due to airport closure in Dubai because of a “crash landing” on the runway. Eerie images of the SQ6 wreckage flashed through my mind, but we found out later that the accident wasn’t as serious as the ground staff portrayed it to be.
I asked if Qatar Airways would divert the flight to Sharjah Airport, which is just a 30-minute drive from Dubai, ‘cos it didn’t make sense that we had to wait 10 hours for a 45 minute flight. However, the ground staff could only say “No, it’s not possible” or “I don’t know”.
I worried about all the frozen homemade kaya and sambal haybee left in cargo in some hangar or worse, the tarmac…
So Qatar Airways put the stranded passengers up in a nearby hotel, and lunch at the hotel was paid for too. We managed to get a nice afternoon nap, then took the shuttle bus back to Doha airport. The bus from the hotel to the airport was delayed for 20 minutes because one of the passengers made a call from his hotel room and didn’t have Qatari Riyal to pay for it. He needed 82 Riyal, so a few people from the bus helped to chip in to expedite his check out.
Airports in the Middle East are quite a mess with not just long queues at Immigration, but Immigration staff who take forever to clear each passenger. And bags are scanned at 3 to 4 different points, passport and boarding passes checked about 3 or 4 times too. Very ‘leceh’.
At the Immigration counter in Doha Airport, I was in the “Ladies’ Inspection” queue and noticed that a few angmoh men and an Arab man with his family were also in the queue. Because it was a shorter queue, I asked Ben to join me. However, the guy who was behind me in the line got aggressive when Ben came over.
He was like “Hey! There’s a queue here and I have a flight to catch!” and I said, “My husband and I are travelling together” and he was like, "So?!! You can bloody well move to the back then!" Ben was not in the mood to argue ‘cos he felt we were in the wrong, so I moved back behind this angmoh a**hole. Just ONE spot behind him. Duh…
Wa lau… wtf… Do you know who he was? He was the same guy that delayed the bus! He made 19 people wait 20 minutes for him, and strangers helped him pay 82 Riyal for his bloody phonecall (that’s about 80 Ringgit!). And now, just moving one place behind in a queue was a big deal? We’re all on the same flight, you bloody ungrateful moron!
I just kept silent and didn’t argue with him. “Budi baik dikenang baik. Budi jahat dibalas jahat.” What goes around, comes around.
Here’s a picture of him, rushing to join the crowd at the flight gate.
We waited another 3 hours till we finally left Doha. When we arrived in Dubai, clearance at Immigration took over an hour!
Dubai may boast that it has a huge airport, but it’s just that. Huge. Passengers have to walk for miles to get from their gates to Immigration, but the airport is chaotic at Immigration and at the departure & arrival areas.
You find you have to walk from one end of the airport to the other, only to be told that your gate has been changed, so you proceed to the new gate, rush to get in queue, for a bus that will bring you to a remote parking bay far, far away. Size doesn’t matter if you have only ONE runway and no aerobridges! Duh…
At the Immigration counters in Dubai airport, the ugliness of a few Caucasian men showed. First, there was of course the same guy who told me off. He was probably really ticked off that this little insignificant ‘oriental girl’ spoke back. And there he was in Dubai, pushing his way around, cutting queues to get ahead at Immigration.
When an Immigration officer opened up a new queue, all these lemming-like morons ran for it. Among them was another Caucasian man, who bumped into an Indian man. He started swearing at the Indian man, who let him get ahead of him. But ugly angmoh man was not happy and continued pushing and swearing, swinging his luggage at the Indian man. The Indian guy asked him to relax, and another Indian guy tried to break it up between them.
Later, in another queue, another Caucasian man started cussing the Pakistani guy in front of him. Apparently, when it was the Pakistani guy’s turn to proceed to the counter, someone from another line jumped the queue. So the Caucasian man got pissed off, “Hey! What the @#$%!! You’re just gonna let that guy get ahead? So we’re all just gonna stand here all night? Why the %$#@ are you just standing there? Aren’t you gonna move… blah blah blah”. The Pakistani dude just ignored him.
In a region where Caucasian expats are so highly paid and ‘kow-tow-ed’ and Asians are treated as lower class, you can really see how ugly class-conscious people can become. It’s more subtle in Singapore, where you sometimes see customers ordering waiters or service staff around like they owe them a living. Be nice lah. Waiters may wait on you ‘cos they need to earn a living, but they’re not inferior, and not slaves. Good manners usually begets good service… unless the waitress is having PMS or something.
Ben n I get home at around 1.00am (5.00am Singapore/KL time), more than 24 hours after checking-in for our flight the morning before. So much for hoping that our return to Dubai would be a smooth transition after such a nice break back home. But NO… The Middle East once again had to prove how different they are from the rest of the world. At least I’ve learnt a lesson or two...
1. To be civilised doesn’t depend on where you come from. You may come from the most developed or richest nation in the world, but you’re uncivilised once you think that you’re the biggest fish in the sea.
2. We all have the same fate at the end of the road, so why turn ugly just to get ahead? Life is beautiful if only we took the time to appreciate the little things that really matter.
3. And next time, we’re flying Singapore Airlines.
The guy at the Transfer Counter said that the delay was due to airport closure in Dubai because of a “crash landing” on the runway. Eerie images of the SQ6 wreckage flashed through my mind, but we found out later that the accident wasn’t as serious as the ground staff portrayed it to be.
I asked if Qatar Airways would divert the flight to Sharjah Airport, which is just a 30-minute drive from Dubai, ‘cos it didn’t make sense that we had to wait 10 hours for a 45 minute flight. However, the ground staff could only say “No, it’s not possible” or “I don’t know”.
I worried about all the frozen homemade kaya and sambal haybee left in cargo in some hangar or worse, the tarmac…
So Qatar Airways put the stranded passengers up in a nearby hotel, and lunch at the hotel was paid for too. We managed to get a nice afternoon nap, then took the shuttle bus back to Doha airport. The bus from the hotel to the airport was delayed for 20 minutes because one of the passengers made a call from his hotel room and didn’t have Qatari Riyal to pay for it. He needed 82 Riyal, so a few people from the bus helped to chip in to expedite his check out.
Airports in the Middle East are quite a mess with not just long queues at Immigration, but Immigration staff who take forever to clear each passenger. And bags are scanned at 3 to 4 different points, passport and boarding passes checked about 3 or 4 times too. Very ‘leceh’.
At the Immigration counter in Doha Airport, I was in the “Ladies’ Inspection” queue and noticed that a few angmoh men and an Arab man with his family were also in the queue. Because it was a shorter queue, I asked Ben to join me. However, the guy who was behind me in the line got aggressive when Ben came over.
He was like “Hey! There’s a queue here and I have a flight to catch!” and I said, “My husband and I are travelling together” and he was like, "So?!! You can bloody well move to the back then!" Ben was not in the mood to argue ‘cos he felt we were in the wrong, so I moved back behind this angmoh a**hole. Just ONE spot behind him. Duh…
Wa lau… wtf… Do you know who he was? He was the same guy that delayed the bus! He made 19 people wait 20 minutes for him, and strangers helped him pay 82 Riyal for his bloody phonecall (that’s about 80 Ringgit!). And now, just moving one place behind in a queue was a big deal? We’re all on the same flight, you bloody ungrateful moron!
I just kept silent and didn’t argue with him. “Budi baik dikenang baik. Budi jahat dibalas jahat.” What goes around, comes around.
Here’s a picture of him, rushing to join the crowd at the flight gate.
We waited another 3 hours till we finally left Doha. When we arrived in Dubai, clearance at Immigration took over an hour!
Dubai may boast that it has a huge airport, but it’s just that. Huge. Passengers have to walk for miles to get from their gates to Immigration, but the airport is chaotic at Immigration and at the departure & arrival areas.
You find you have to walk from one end of the airport to the other, only to be told that your gate has been changed, so you proceed to the new gate, rush to get in queue, for a bus that will bring you to a remote parking bay far, far away. Size doesn’t matter if you have only ONE runway and no aerobridges! Duh…
At the Immigration counters in Dubai airport, the ugliness of a few Caucasian men showed. First, there was of course the same guy who told me off. He was probably really ticked off that this little insignificant ‘oriental girl’ spoke back. And there he was in Dubai, pushing his way around, cutting queues to get ahead at Immigration.
When an Immigration officer opened up a new queue, all these lemming-like morons ran for it. Among them was another Caucasian man, who bumped into an Indian man. He started swearing at the Indian man, who let him get ahead of him. But ugly angmoh man was not happy and continued pushing and swearing, swinging his luggage at the Indian man. The Indian guy asked him to relax, and another Indian guy tried to break it up between them.
Later, in another queue, another Caucasian man started cussing the Pakistani guy in front of him. Apparently, when it was the Pakistani guy’s turn to proceed to the counter, someone from another line jumped the queue. So the Caucasian man got pissed off, “Hey! What the @#$%!! You’re just gonna let that guy get ahead? So we’re all just gonna stand here all night? Why the %$#@ are you just standing there? Aren’t you gonna move… blah blah blah”. The Pakistani dude just ignored him.
In a region where Caucasian expats are so highly paid and ‘kow-tow-ed’ and Asians are treated as lower class, you can really see how ugly class-conscious people can become. It’s more subtle in Singapore, where you sometimes see customers ordering waiters or service staff around like they owe them a living. Be nice lah. Waiters may wait on you ‘cos they need to earn a living, but they’re not inferior, and not slaves. Good manners usually begets good service… unless the waitress is having PMS or something.
Ben n I get home at around 1.00am (5.00am Singapore/KL time), more than 24 hours after checking-in for our flight the morning before. So much for hoping that our return to Dubai would be a smooth transition after such a nice break back home. But NO… The Middle East once again had to prove how different they are from the rest of the world. At least I’ve learnt a lesson or two...
1. To be civilised doesn’t depend on where you come from. You may come from the most developed or richest nation in the world, but you’re uncivilised once you think that you’re the biggest fish in the sea.
2. We all have the same fate at the end of the road, so why turn ugly just to get ahead? Life is beautiful if only we took the time to appreciate the little things that really matter.
3. And next time, we’re flying Singapore Airlines.
2 comments:
"..Singapore Girl..You're a great way to fly". Berns didn't this incident just bring you back to days of AOG and pax are just all edgy? heh heh.. I'm just glad you 2 got back in 1 piece! :) can't wait for ur next trip, this time no suprises.. cos it was impossible to re-arrange my schedule those days!!!! take care u 2!! lov n huggs! -raena
That's why... at least with SQ the pax would usually get decent service from ground staff too... Sigh... Everything in this region is just "super cannot make it" lah. And yes, next time no surprises 'cos I missed out on quite a number of friends due to their busy schedules.
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