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Flight of the Disenchanted
Hard landings at Asian airports
By TERRY McCARTHY
December 1, 1999
Web posted at 6 a.m. Hong Kong time, 5 p.m. EDT
Years ago traveling was such a burden--slow boats to China, quoits on deck, onboard romances, dinner with the captain.
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Today, of course, everything is so much more convenient: we are crammed into anatomy-defying seats on supersonic jets with bad air, worse food and flight attendants with attitudes (most of them negative), as we try to make out what the captain is saying on an inaudible PA system about the relative level of discomfort he can promise in the turbulence ahead.
But uncomfortable as jet travel may be, it is airports that can really spoil your day--and Asia has some of the world's best worst. Take Narita, the barbed-wire fortress from hell that is so far from Tokyo that it can take longer to get to the airport than to fly to a destination. Naturally as Japan's main international airport, it has only one runway. Delays in landing and takeoff are part of the ritual of entering and exiting the Rising Sun, not to mention the interminable lines for everything from check-in and security to immigration and departure gates. A flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong seems as arduous as Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, minus the scenery.
As an aside, what is the most illogical way to load a plane with 300 people? Just open one door, of course. Planes are apparently built with 8 to 12 doors just for show--only the front left-hand door is ever opened so that the entire passenger list is funneled through one narrow door like sheep into a dipping pen. The ordinary family car has four doors which are all commonly put into use by civilized people, so why haven't airlines learned that trick yet?
Back to bad airports. Hong Kong's new airport is fine--for long-distance runners, that is. Most gates seem to be in a different degree of latitude from the check-in areas. Bangkok welcomes marathon runners as well in its new second terminal. Beijing's new terminal is adequate reason for immediately razing the ratty old one to the ground. Shanghai now has airport schizophrenia, having built a second airport in Pudong in true command-economy style before deciding what to use it for.
Malaysia adopted the Narita model of distance in deciding where to build its new KL airport. In Manila the baggage delivery is so slow that it is like watching geological eras form as the bags proceed up the ramp to be deposited on the carousel in glacial chunks as waiting passengers doze off, while leaning against their luggage carts.
But the future of Asian aviation is without doubt in Phnom Penh's Pochentong airport. This is where tycoons shoot out airline tires in frustration at losing their luggage and the military uses rocket-propelled grenades to break into the duty-free shop as part of the standard operating procedure in a coup. Wake up, Asia. This is what air rage of the future really looks like.
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