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Journal salimma's Journal: Travel Trivia 16

Journal by salimma

Spent a day partaking in lighter-than-air travel courtesy of Boeing and Emirates. I have not flown from Manchester for two years, so I was quite surprised at how strictly they interpreted the rules for cabin luggage. Your one sole piece (for economy passengers) has to fit a measuring compartment, then it is actually weighed to make sure it's less than 7 kg. One should think that with airlines supposedly giving passengers more leg space, there is no need for drastic weight curtailment in that area - it used to be 12 kg until a few years ago; quite the opposite, in fact, but that's life.

Emirates finally allows in-flight electronics use, apart from transmitting devices, and during taxi, take-off and landing. Fair enough. Good news for Handspring and its users, nobody mistook me for an evil hijacker wanting to crash the plane with a stray phone (doh!).

Lots of Indonesian manual expats from the Arab world for the Dubai-Singapore-Jakarta leg, which makes me shakes my head in utter disbelief that Emirates still has no Indonesian-speaking crewmember onboard that route. Queueing for the gate is a nightmare with my fellow Indonesian passport holders not understanding English instructions, and inexplicably seeming not to understand much Arabic either.

I was burying my head in my Balzac and newspapers, and pretending not to speak Indonesian, and it was quite amusing to see what people speak behind your back when you are assumed not to follow the conversation ... for some reason the woman next to me thought I was studying the whole while - presumably she meant to say bookworm instead? These domestic workers for some reason were playing a game calling any guy sitting next to them they don't know their 'boyfriends', and the woman next to me was mocking her friend sitting by the window for having an ugly 'boyfriend'. Said ugly guy left the plane in Singapore and a Chinese-Indonesian, conversant in the language, boarded. My 'girlfriend' then committed the faux pas of telling her friend that she swapped an ugly man for a Chink (well, that's how it translates - us Chinese are not very well-liked) - ah well. Not the flight to meet elegant women, obviously. For UK-Jakarta flight one is better advised to stick to Air France, or Singapore Airlines if one has the cash.

Back to Balzac, it was quite amusing. I was reading the book 'Cousin Bette' after watching the movie Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, this join Franco-Chinese art production about two 'intellectuals' who were sent to the countryside for reeducation camp during the Cultural Revolution period, stole a suitcase full of forbidden bourgeois books and set out to convert this peasant seamstress they were in love with and 'cure' her from her ignorance, and alas, the first book they read to her, the only one she liked, was exactly Cousin Bette. About wily women who cocquettishly devoured hapless men for breakfast, in short. The movie is, needless to say, rather Balzacian in spirit. Worth a watch. Though alas there was nobody on that plane as striking as the Chinese seamstress, though in ignorance our fictional character was fast surpassed by many (the Chinese seamstress took apart a mechanical clock and could not put it back together; the woman next to me was totally clueless on how to operate the TV/radio set)
.

Back at home at last. Back to pirated $0.50 VCDs, $3 DVDs, people using mobile phones unabashedly in cinemas and cable modems that instead of slowing to a crawl during peak usage, actually slow to a complete halt (well, I could get to the ISP's home page and mail server, c'est tout :P). Back to smuggled electronics without warranty. Thank goodness I normally stick to computer equipments, they tend to be mostly legally imported still.

On the bright side, food is good and since dad bought a JVC DV camera I could finally try the Memory Stick drive on my computer. I wish this format war gets over soon. Just give me SD - but I'm not the one who sets the standard...

Signing off from sun-drenched, lead-encrusted carbon-monoxide-filled Jakarta :)

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  • Your one sole piece (for economy passengers) has to fit a measuring compartment, then it is actually weighed to make sure it's less than 7 kg.

    This, I find, is another example of airline braindead-ness. I fly enough to know what I'll actually need before I'm reunited with my main luggage, which isn't a lot, and most of it fits into my jacket pockets. My usual carryon bag is maybe 30 or 35L capacity, but when I checkin it's nearly empty so I go right through the weighing and measuring. Then I get airside a
    • Hmmm...I wonder. Do they weigh your stuff that goes into the baggage compartment also? Is there a limit? Do they charge extra iif your bags weigh more or something?

      I've never flown before, so while these questions might seem elementary to you guys, I am completely clueless.
      • Do they weigh your stuff that goes into the baggage compartment also? Is there a limit? Do they charge extra iif your bags weigh more or something?

        They do and there is and they do, but I've never gotten anywhere near it. On Virgin [virgin-atlantic.com] you're allowed 2 pieces of 32 kilos each. That's a lot of luggage!

        • Well, I suppose the limitations on carryons and luggage department are rather self-serving then. The less people take on the plane with them, the less fuel they have to spend, and the less money the flight will cost them.

          Of course by limiting the carrryons, they are just shifting weight to the back, I suppose, but then maybe it's best to have as much weight as possible in the back of the plane? I don't anything about the design of airplanes either. (See how useless I am? ;)
          • Well, I suppose the limitations on carryons and luggage department are rather self-serving then. The less people take on the plane with them, the less fuel they have to spend, and the less money the flight will cost them.

            The pricing of airline seats and hotel rooms is fascinating. If a business doesn't sell its tons of steel today, it can still sell them tomorrow but if a plane takes off with an empty seat, then that money is lost forever to the airline. And even if the plane doesn't have enough passenger
            • The pricing of airline seats and hotel rooms is fascinating. If a business doesn't sell its tons of steel today, it can still sell them tomorrow but if a plane takes off with an empty seat, then that money is lost forever to the airline. And even if the plane doesn't have enough passengers on to break even, they still have to fly it because it's needed to pick up passengers for the return leg. So, the problem is to maximize occupancy and revenue. That's why you can sometimes get last-minute cheap flights, i
              • Interestingly enough the average fare per passenger often ends up being the same or higher than the traditional carriers.

                Yeah, I was talking about this with some friends... between us, we knew one person who'd gotten one of the advertised fares, and he'd booked months in advance (flying home after the end of term, I think he was).

                Budget airlines were definitely cheaper than people like BA when they started, but nowadays, in practice, I think you have a very good chance of getting a better price from a ca
                • EasyJet and Ryanair quote a cheap price upfront then nibble you to death on extras.

                  I don't know much about Ryanair and EasyJet, just that they are mentioned as European copies of Southwest.

                  In my experience the service on Southwest, Frontier, JetBlue, and carriers that are starting to use a similar pricing model like Alaska and America West is fine. Only Southwest doesn't have traditional assigned seating, all offer drinks on board, and Alaska and America West have meals or snack service.

                  The only US carr

            • And even if the plane doesn't have enough passengers on to break even, they still have to fly it because it's needed to pick up passengers for the return leg.

              And the passengers get really irked if they have to reschedule to another flight :) Of course, when I was on transit in Dubai, there was a cancelled flight. I was not too surprised to find it was Aeroflot, really..

              Emirates now fly direct Dubai-Moscow, incidentally. Must be aiming to capitalise on Aeroflot's troubles. Incidentally, has anyone flown

              • A friend of mine once travelled on this Russian-made plane on a domestic Chinese airline and the seats were facing backwards...

                That's common on military transports, it means if you decelerate suddenly everyone is forced back into their seats, it's safer that way.
                • Being the aforementioned friend, I can say this hypothesis is very probably absolutely correct. The stewards and stewardesses also gave all passengers this soured, hostile look that could only have been developed after working for years on Chinese military transport planes used for ferrying dangerous criminals or enemies of the state. :)

        • On Virgin you're allowed 2 pieces of 32 kilos each. That's a lot of luggage!

          That's a *lot* indeed. Most other airlines tend to give you one bag of around 30 kg weight - anything below 35 kg per person and I think they might let you off without paying the fine.

          Once one gets fined, of course, it is cheaper to just send the extra suitcase by mail ... airlines make a lot of money that way.

          The funny thing is, the heaviest person in the world plus his luggage gets to travel for much cheaper than the average

    • And I have an expanding suitcase too

      That sounds like a damn good idea :) Provided one shops duty-free the cabin bag check is rather easy to bypass. Alas, the only thing that normally strikes my fancy on duty-free shops are books, and gadgets - there is a gadget shop at the duty free in Dubai.

      Last-minute souvenir shopping would be handy too, of course. For people who are not too important you want to make sure you get the perfect item before you get to the airport...

  • Back to pirated $0.50 VCDs, $3 DVDs
    Ssome people have all the luck. I figure I'm doing well if I can get a 30-year old movie for $10.84 :(

    • I figure I'm doing well if I can get a 30-year old movie for $10.84 :(

      Ah, but the availability of pirated old movies (apart from time-tested classics like Sound of Music is terrible. For older and non-mainstream movies, and movies I really want to keep, I tend to buy the original, as long as the price is not too exorbitant (European DVDs selling for £19.99 for instance).

      In any case, the quality on pirated stuff is really terrible sometimes. I have seen VCD-quality DVD rips obviously taken using an


  • you got serious writing talent, documentary-styleee, dude :)

    keep us posted :)

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