Horror in Hong Kong

The title almost sounds like one of the titles of the Felu-da stories by Satyajit Ray - the first volume of which i finished a couple of days ago. However, unlike Felu-da, there is no mystery here. Just a sordid tale of incompetent service providers.

Most of you know that I had taken a short vacation (or shall i say had hoped to take one!!) beginning of December. Had gone to Pangkor in Malaysia, followed by Hong Kong and Macau. What i am going to write about is the return from Macau to India which was one my worst ever travelling experiences.

It all started when we (Mahesh - my colleague, myself and our respective pregnant wives) decided to take the ferry from Macau directly to Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok Airport. Usually we would have taken a ferry to Hong Kong island and then taken the train to the airport. This time we said - "No point in dragging the luggage and the ladies to the main island and then to the airport. Might as well go straight to the airport by the direct ferry."

Little did we know how much we would rue this decision of ours.

When we reached the airport, we realised there were dedicated check-in counters at the ferry terminal there. It was not a full-service check-in section, but one where the major airlines, like Qantas, were doubling up as service providers to the other airlines as well. One could not get into the airport without checking-in for your flight from here. Unlike most international airport terminals (including the main terminals at HKIA), this was a very very bare terimnal. It had no facilities for drinking water, no place to get any sort of food. Fortunately, it had loos and even some chairs (albeit plastic chairs!!).

Anyways, all this would have been irrelevant and inconsequential, if not for our sordid tales of agony and misery.

We went to the counter to check ourselves in, all the way to India via Kuala Lumpur, and stood in the Qantas queue (as they were the check-in agents for Malaysian). The ladies, in their excitement (after all we had discussed that we would check out the shops at the airport and do some shopping), decided to stand in the security queue, even as we were trying to check ourselves in. Their glee was shortlived as we soon realised that there was a problem with our tickets. We were travelling Malaysian Airlines throughout and the lady said she couldn't give us a through check-in.

Reason - We did not have a reservation on Malaysian Airlines for the KL - Mum sector.

On further querying, we discovered that the Kl - Mum flight was a code share flight between Malaysian and Air India. And while the rest of our tickets were booked on Malaysian, this sector was booked on Air India. And since this was an extension terminal and the Qantas check-in counter was not able to see our bookings on the Malaysian system. Hence no through check-in.

You might wonder what the big deal in this was. We could always go to KL and then get the check-in for the next sector. Problems -

• there was only a 1 hour transit time between the two flights;
• to check in for the next flight there meant we had to go through immigration and then check-in;
• we did not have Malaysian visas to go through immigration and to get visa on arrival would mean atleast 1 hour of standing in the queue.

Add to this issues such as collecting and checking-in baggage again. It would have been bad and impossible enough even in normal circumstances. Given that we had two pregnant and tired ladies in tow, it was IMPOSSIBLE.

The only thing that went in our favour was that we had some 4 hours before the flight and we were carrying some fruits and water with us.

So we spent the next 3 hours on the phone on international roaming with our completely imcompetent and imbecile of a travel agent and an equally stupid and unhelpful Malaysian Airlines staff in Mumbai. They kept telling us that we had confirmed tickets and there was no problem, and everytime the check-in staff kept telling us that they could not see our reservation.

The check-in staff gave us instructions on what the agency/airline ("imbeciles") should do and we conveyed the same promptly to the parties concerned. The imbeciles kept telling us that they had put the instructions saying that we had confirmed tickets from KL - Mum on Malaysian Airlines, and the check-in staff kept telling us they could see no instruction. The imbeciles told us Air India had confirmed the tickets, but the staff here could stillnot see the same.

In the meanwhile, the Qantas staff faxed out ticket copies to the airline office in KL to see if they could sort out the matter, spoke multiple times to the airline staff at HK and so on. They understood our situation and were sympathetic to the fact that we had two pregnant ladies (to which they promptly got us to fill imdemnity forms), but were not able to do much given the situation.

Finally after a lot of effort, we were told that the instructions had come through. As we submitted our tickets again for the boarding passes, we found out that only Surabhi and my tickets had come through. Mahesh and Ramya were still waitlisted on the KL-Mum sector.

Another round of calls and finally some hard talk followed with the imbeciles. By this time the airline staff in Mumbai had stopped picking up our phones, and the airline manager even had the audacity to tell us that he was out of the office and we should contact the office as he could do nothing.

The agency staff kept assuring Mahesh that he should board the flight to KL and they would make sure the issue was sorted out by the time we landed there. Their dilemma was the same as I mentioned above on taking the flight to KL without having the through check-in.

Mahesh contemplated not taking the flight at all and going to the city and spending the night there while they got another reservation. However, when we found out that we could not enter Hong Kong from this terminal (and would have to go back to China or Macau and from there go to HK), the decision was made.

The agent once again assured us that Mahesh and Ramya would get their onward boarding passes at KL and that they should board the flight. So we checked-in all the luggage in Surabhi and my name (as their luggage would not have been through checked-in otherwise)and ran to get the flight.

The ladies had so far been sitting on plastic chairs for a good 3 hours withiut proper food and with a lot of stress. They were tired and hungry and pained out of their wits.

As we got into the airport, we asked them to go to the boarding gate while Mahesh and I ran to get some food for them. The only highlight of the day was the desi bhindi rice that I got in a multi-cuisine restaurent, which turned out to be better than what we have ever seen at most places in India as well.

To add to insult to injury, our HK-KL flight was delayed by 30 mins, further adding to Mahesh's tensions since now the transit time would be even further reduced. Even at the boarding gate we tried a lot to see if the problem could be sorted out before we boarded the flight, but despite all the helpfulness of the staff, it was to no avail.

The only benefit of the flight delay was the fact that the ladies could eat all the food we had got for them, comfortably and peacefully.

We had mentally prepared ourselves that Mahesh and Ramya would have to spend the night in the transit hotel at KL and would only be able to take the next flight thereafter to India.

If all the pain and torture was not enough, on the HK - KL flight we found out that our Veg food order was not recorded with them and hence they did not have veg food for us. I was so pissed mad that it is not funny at all.

Anyways, the aircraft happened to have some ready-to-eat Indian veg food (I wonder how as this was a HK-KL flight and had no India connection except idiots like us travelling by it) and somehow we ate some parts of it and survived the flight. The bhindi-rice and the other food we had earlier turned out to be a real saviour.

On the flight we kept discussing the various options on reaching KL airport. As soon as we landed, Mahesh ran to the front of the aircraft to get out quickly and get the extra two mins to sort out the mess.

Anyways, the suspense ended at KL when as soon as we got out of the aircraft, Mahesh asked the ground-staff for directions to the transit counters and by the way discovered that he was holding their boarding passes.

Our KL-Mum flight again got delayed because some blessed Indian film stars decided to display their stardom and hence boarded the flight in their own sweet time. Just in case you are curious about who these are - Sunil Shetty, Riya Sen and some other jokers. I don't think we even noticed the fact that the food on this flight was HORRIBLE as we were so firmly focused on getting our feet back on Indian soil and getting back home.

Finally we reached Mumbai airport at some 10:30 - 11:00 pm and breathed a sigh of relief.

What an ending to what a trip (that's another story for another day!!)