Travelling on a Red-Eye Flight

I’ve written on a previous blog post on how much I dislike travelling on the red-eye flight to Beijing, and won’t ever hope to do it again.

But you know how such things are.

Because here I am again, at 11pm at night, at Gate 46 of Terminal 1, waiting to get on the red-eye flight to Beijing.

It’s bad enough that I’m taking a flight at this hour. But this time, because I really have to get into town by 930am in the morning, I’ve chosen not to take Singapore Airlines, but The Other Airline, which is supposed to reach Beijing at 620am, a full 50 minutes ahead of SQ flight. (Knowing full well that there will likely be delays that will make this flight just maybe about 20 minutes ahead of the SQ one. Ah.. the value of time..)

The Other Airline, is usually cram full with tourists, both those heading towards Beijing and those returning home to Beijing. At 11pm at night, facing a night-long flight, you can understand that I’m feeling kind of grumpy.

And having fellow passengers who are packing and repacking their endless bits of plastic bags don’t really help (for tourists returning home). And shouting excitedly whilst doing so. Nor do those who are so bubbling with excitement about their upcoming trip that they have to shout excitedly to their fellow tour companions(for tourists going to Beijing).

But honestly, the worst kind of fellow passengers are those that allow their children (I wanted to use monsters but even at 11pm at night, that’s not a kind thing to say) to run about on the travelators , screaming and shouting at the top of their voices. Now, I can understand when travellers with infants have no choice when their yelling infants scream and cry on flights (although, I do wish and hope that they are travelling with such young one only out of absolute necessity). Honestly, I do. But when you have children at an age where they can comprehend simple instructions such as “Be quiet”, “Come over here” or “Stop it”, I really have the greatest urge to give these parents a good shake.

Actually, I am wrong.

Those are not the worst kind of fellow passengers. The worst are those who are no longer children, or even teenagers for that matter, but who are behaving very much like a 2 year old – yelling at the top of their voice, exclaiming over the smallest thing (like oh, there is internet connection at the Gate, and free phone calls to town!).

OK, I feel much better after all that ranting. I guess I have to just try to pretend that I’m going to sleep at a market later on the plane. I’ve to go now, gate’s closing.