Riot at Airport and My Experience with International Airlines

I just read today in the Los Angeles Times an article from a seasoned traveler who witnessed a riot at a Japanese airport at a Chinese airlines terminal. Passengers waited 10 hours for a delayed flight and in the end, people were chanting "I want to go home" in Chinese. Then they started pushing and shoving at the employees. Some employees faces were wet from tears.

This kind of surprised me because I have traveled many times on China Airlines to Thailand and never experienced any delays. OK, there was a time when my flight was delayed half hour. My friend, who is from Taipei, once remarked that I was crazy to fly on China Airlines. I asked why. He said that the pilots on Chinese Airlines are ex-Mig pilots. They sometimes get bored flying on auto that they sometimes switch it off and fly the plane manually. Hmmmm.

I like flying - it gives me time to catch up on movies and sleep. Currently, I average 4 or 5 hours of sleep. But when I fly international, I can sleep the whole flight without sleep aids. The flight from Los Angeles to Thailand is 18 hours - but with a stop in Taipei, Japan, Hong Kong, or Singapore.

The service and even the food are good on all asian flights. I've flown on Singapore, EVA, Thai Airways, and China Airlines. Currently, my airline of choice is China Airlines because they seem to offer the best prices.

Most flights have been uneventful except for one flight coming back to Los Angeles. There was a lot of turbulence. It seemed that there were more turbulence than smooth flying. One particular episode, the air crew were serving dinner. I was in the last row and was served first. After my row was served, turbulence hit. Really hard. The air crew turned back and returned to their seats. I couldn't eat my food because the plane shook really bad. In the back of my head, I thought the plane could possibly shatter.

Luckily I saw a PBS show on jet airplanes and I remember one sequence when they showed clips of a plane in the middle of the storm. The wind was so fierce that the wings were actually flapping like a bird. However, all the abuse still didn't affect the plane. This thought actually calmed me down.

I looked again at my tray of food and the wine had splashed completely out of my cup. I gave up eating and just closed my eyes. Before doing so, I looked around and people were crying and vomiting in their air sick bags.

I just closed my eyes and opened them when the turbulence subsided.