This is why I hate flying (but apparently I can bluff)

2023-04-20

It’s weird to declare that I hate flying, for someone who does it as much as I do. Here’s my travel log for a pre-pandemic year (2018):

(the “San José” in there is the one in Costa Rica, not California).

At least more recently I try a lot harder to ride trains more. But it’s often not an option. Besides feeling increasingly terrible about all the burned kerosene (I buy carbon credits, but that only goes so far in appeasing my conscience), the following is one more reason why I hate flying.

I’m writing this down mostly to have something to point people to when they ask me what happened. If you’re not one of those (and honestly even if you are), you will probably find this very boring.

TL;DR bumpy road from Tokyo to Shanghai.

My flight from Tokyo to Shanghai was leaving on April 20th, late afternoon. I had a layover in Hong Kong because flights to China are still very pricey and this is the best compromise I could find. The same day, I go to the airline’s website (Hong Kong airlines) to check in. First weird thing: they force me to pick a seat on both flights, and all seats are extra $. Even the random ones stuck in the middle. No seat selection? Then check in in person at the counter. I’m usually happy to pay for a window seat on a long flight, but for today I don’t really care and I’m cheap. Oh well, fine, I’ll pay a bit extra for things to go smoother at the airport, I don’t want to wait in a long line at the check-in counter. All good, email with links to electronic boarding passes. I save the PDFs on my phone for offline access.

Now that I think of it, the bumpy experience started a couple of weeks earlier, when I got my visa. I initially wanted to get it from San Francisco, so I started filling in the online form. Guess what, China has made it a lot more difficult than before. You have to list all the schools you went to, with years, corresponding diploma, etc.. Then you have to list all the companies you have ever worked for. For each company, the dates, address, phone number, name of supervisor, phone number of supervisor… You get the idea. Come on, China. I had actually started doing this a few months ago and had given up in frustration. But this time, I have to finish it. Phew, all done, now to get an appointment at the consulate in San Francisco. Too bad, the earliest available appointment is in 2.5 weeks, after I’m scheduled to leave for Tokyo. Thankfully, I’m spending a few weeks in Tokyo before heading to China, so I’ll request my visa there. Guess what, you need to start the form from scratch, because it’s not the same location. In retrospect I admire myseslf for not “rage-quitting” then and there.

I got a Chinese visa from the consulate in Tokyo before, and it was actually quite a pleasant experience. Central location, clean and modern, not crowded, nice people, so I’m pleased to go back. Err, nope. The location has changed (45 minutes trip each way from Tokyo center), and it is now extremely crowded. Probably many Chinese citizens (current or former) living in Tokyo and happy to finally be able to go back to China (tourists can visit the country again since mid-March 2023). There’s a long line just outside of the elevator even before getting into the embassy. Yes, even if you have an appointment.

And then more waiting inside. To be fair, it’s likely worse in the San Francisco consulate.

(I’m glad I didn’t get caught taking this photo; a Chinese officer caught another guy, and made sure that he deleted the images). We are entering the land of freedom, y’all.

I spent about 3.5 hours in there. I’m happy that the only document I lacked was a photocopy of something I had with me. And I’m glad I always carry paper ID photos with me (been bitten before); since the online form asks you to upload an image and rejects anything without a light background and well centered, you would be forgiven for thinking you didn’t need to also bring paper photos. Phew, I dodged that one.

A week later, I go to pick up my passport (1.5 hour round trip again). I think “hey this will be quick, pay up and get the hell out”. Oh how naive I was.

3 more hours. They only agreed to give me a single entry visa, and I’m only staying one week: stretch it a bit more and I’ll soon be spending more time at the embassy than in China.

Back to flight day. I start by taking the Namboku line from Azabujuban near my place in Tokyo, and get off at Tameikesanno. I don’t have a precise itinerary yet: the quickest way to the Narita airport can vary a lot depending on the departue time and location. But I’m almost certain that Tameikesanno on the Ginza line will be on the roadmap, so I head there first. At Tameikesanno, I ask Google Maps for an itinerary. I usually pick the route it suggests (earliest arrival) and I just mumble a bit if it happens to be a more expensive route (price can vary a lot depending on the line and speed). Good surprise, the route with earliest arrival is actually on the cheap side. Nice, this is going smoothly again, I think to myself.

🎵 The road goes ever on and on 🎶 (I always sing that to myself when I’m on the move again). At least I travel light.

I am planning to arrive at the airport early, because I’m hoping to get a couple of hours of work in after going through security and wrap up some things before going to China.

Arrived at the airport, I walk past the check in counter and head to the gates. I load the PDF of my first boarding pass and scan the barcode on the automated turnstile. BEEP, womp womp, red light, ticket gets printed reading “please see personnel”. Guy comes over, makes me try again. BEEP, red light. Another ticket. He looks at my boarding pass. Seems fine. He has me scan the 2D QR code instead of the 1D barcode. BEEP, red light, bjjjt third printed ticket. Am I arrested yet? I guess I’ll have to go to the counter after all.

The check-in counters are understaffed so it’s a long wait. When I finally get there, the attendant is a friendly Indian guy who talks to me in English. I’m the only non-Asian guy in sight, and my passport is French, so it seems like he needs to read through the documentation on his screen (following with his finger) to see what’s required for my situation.

Sir, do you have a return flight? Yes, it’s a different airline, I show him the reservation. Sir, do you have a vaccination certificate? Why yes, triple vaccination card, here you go. Sir, do you have a QR code? Erm, nope what’s that? Apprently I also need to register on a Chinese website. He scribbles the URL on the back of a discarded boarding pass. And asks me to do this on the empty counter next to his. I guess I should have known about that part? But the airline certainly didn’t tell me anything when I booked the flight nor checked in online.

“HTDELL”? Huh, okay. I assume that’s “GOV.CN”.

He comes back to me: “oh and it will ask you for a receipt number, you should give it forty-five zee” — “Forty-five, Z (I make a Zorro sign)?” — Yes, let me write it for you.

Okay I almost wish I hadn’t asked. I insist, “is this is a Z? Like Zorro?” — “No no, zee like this, sorry this is a poorly written letter”:

Ah, okay G. I wonder if he’s aware that the receiving end can get confused by his pronounciation even more than by his handwriting. And then I realize he didn’t say “receipt number” but “seat number”, yes that’s my seat number. It seemed awfully short for a “receipt number” anyway. Silly me.

I input the URL carefully on my phone. Erm, 404. I want to ask him to clarify but he’s already busy with another passenger. All right, Google search. Ah, it’s “HTDECL” of course (?). His C and L look exactly the same. Try again. No 404, cool. Blank screen. 30 seconds, blank screen. 1 minute, blank screen.

I look at the attendant, he’s busy with another passenger. He speaks a perfect Japanese. Is it my network connection? I’m on the airport Wifi. I load youtube.com in a separate tab. Blazing fast. But the Chinese site is still loading. I leave it to load, and I copy-paste the URL into a fresh tab just in case. Same. No error, just loading for minutes.

The attendant is done with his passenger, I show him the blank screen: “very, very slow”. He says there is no other way, please try again sir. I keep trying. Now he has to close his counter, but he tells me any other counter is fine. Okay. Now the web page loads, but the buttons don’t respond yet. I hear an announcement saying that the HK airlines check-in counter will be closing, all passengers please check in. Great. Finally, the second page loads. Thankfully it’s a single page form. I fill it as quickly as possible. It asks me if I have tested positive for Covid. Nope. Submit. Here comes the precious QR code. Quick, screenshot.

I head to the only counter still open. A Japanese woman who doesn’t seem to speak much English. I try to explain that I was with her colleague but he needed me to get this QR code. For China. She glances at my screen: “ah, ok”. — “Could I get a boarding pass?” — “Oh you don’t have your boarding pass?” — “I have one on my phone but the gate didn’t let me through”. She takes my passport and starts checking me in again. Sir, do you have a vaccination card? Yes. Return flight? Here. Sir, do you have a QR code for the PCR test?

Wait, what?

It turns out you still need a Covid test to enter mainland China. Okay, that I should definetely have researched beforehand. But I would have hoped the airline could have given me a reminder? Even Japan doesn’t require it any longer if you’re vaccinated.

Now they are chatting in Japanese. At this point I think that I will likely need to go back home, get a Covid test as soon as possible, and book another flight tomorrow or the next day. But again, I’m only staying one week in China. And I spent half a day total at the embassy. I could even just cancel the whole thing. Honestly, if this was a normal situation I would have just given up. For a work meeting, even an important one, I would have given up (sorry, work). I may not even have gone through the visa hoops. But this is way more important. On the other side of the China sea, there is a little girl who’s exicted to see her dad.

(Messages from her mom) “Sophie’s been very excited since yesterday. When I asked her why, she said daddy is coming soon.”

Last time I saw her was 3 months ago in Macau. Before that, I couldn’t see her in person for 3 years (pandemic). After breaking up with my ex wife and leaving, I went through five episodes of major depression over 7 years because of the guilt (each time: can’t work for ~8 weeks, do nothing but sleep, lose 10 kilograms). Sooooo, right now I ain’t gonna let my daughter down, not for any amount of bureaucracy.

The flight attendants tell me that I could fly to Hong Kong, then try to get a Covid test there before flying to Shanghai. But it’s a short layover so it’s tight and may not work out. Okay? They apologize. I say no problem, that part is my fault after all. And I accept the risk: if I need to book another flight to Shanghai on short notice, it will probably be easier from Hong Kong than Tokyo. They give me my boarding pass for Hong Kong, and tear down the one for Shanghai that they had printed. In these moments I am extra glad I never check in any luggage. I head to the gates. Beep, green light. I start queing up for security.

After five minutes, the same flight attendant is going through the line asking for HK airlines passengers. I think “cool, it’s getting late, they’re going to let me bypass the line”. Nope. The flight attendant leads me back to the automated gate, and shows her ID to the guard so he’ll let us out again. She asks me to follow her, half running and glancing back every few seconds to make sure I’m still there, back to the check-in counter. There, she starts filling in my name on a paper form. Am I in trouble? Is it because I said on the Chinese form that I didn’t test positive but I actually didn’t have a recent test, so they consider this a lie? When filling that form I didn’t even know I needed a test. But then again, this is China. Anyway, it’s unlikely that the Japanese personel has access to the form data. The flight attendant doesn’t tell me what this is about. I feel lost in a Kafka story already. I take out my phone to take some snaps.

When she needs to write “France”, I see her writing the Japanese version of the word in the palm of her left hand first. I find that adorable.

As she seems to be struggling with writing English in there, she asks for help from her colleague. At that point I lean in a bit to try and read the form upside down.

Ah, “Release of indemnity”. They want to make sure I won’t complain if I can’t make it for the second flight and lose it. Fair enough. They probably didn’t think it was necessary at first because not having a PCR test was my fault, but they wanted to be extra safe, so they came to grab me again. I sign. For some reason, they print the same boarding pass again.

The flight attendant who now has “fu-la-n-su” katakanas written in her left palm escorts me again, half-running, through the automated gate, and leads me to the VIP security. Ah, so I do get to skip a line after all, w00t. Security is always a challenge for me. I travel a lot so I just have a small backpack, but it’s full of electronics. I always need to take out everything, but I always forget something inside and my bag needs a manual check. This time, no manual check. But the flight attendant is watching me as I re-pack everything and she’s obviously in a hurry so I rush it and obviously can’t fit everything in again. So I give up, zip it back up, and I carry a bunch of things in my hands, trying my best not to drop anything, especially not my passport or boarding pass (though I guess it’s okay if I drop one of those). The flight attendant is very kind and apologetic, and as we walk briskly to the gate she keeps checking that I didn’t lose anything (passport? Yes yes. Boarding pass? Still there. Vaccination card? All good, thank you!). I also apologize profusely for the trouble.

Arrived at the gate, she points me to the “zone B” boarding line and leaves me there. Why did she need to escort me the whole way? I am confused. It might be Japanese politeness. Fifteen years ago when I asked for directions from an elderly man in Tokyo (I didn’t have internet access for maps and Japanese addresses can be confusing), he walked me all the way to my destination.

I was already nearly reaching the boarding gate, so I quickly sent a message to my colleague saying to please feel free to take over what I had planned on finishing up at the airport, because who knows what I can and cannot access from China. My message read so much like a hurried telegram that I may have needlessly worried her, but I knew I would lose the wifi connection after going through the gate and my mobile internet plan doesn’t work in Japan.

Sooooo I’m on my flight to Hong Kong as I write this. As soon as I land, gimme gimme PCR! [To be continued. Still hate flying though.]

After landing in Hong Kong, I go to the transfer counter, explaining my situation and asking where I can get a Covid test. The timing is tight but I want to try. She says they don’t actually check those tests anymore. Huh? So did she think I could just go and board my second flight? Oh, actually, I realize this is the counter for Cathay Pacific. I apologize, my flight is with HK airlines. Ah, in that case she doesn’t know. Covid testing at A3, arrival level, open until 1 AM. No HK counter in sight.

I head towards the arrivals. Waiting for the inter-terminal train, I glance at my watch. 8 PM. The flight is at 9:20, boarding at 8:30. There’s no way I’m going to make it, even assuming that I find the center immediately, that everything goes smoothly, and I get results within an hour or even half that.

At that point I decide to try something I never do: bluff. I’ll just try. Worst case I can’t board, and then I’ll still have time to do the test later the same day and get another flight the next day. Or is that really the worst case scenario? I mean, this is China. Fingers crossed that if it doesn’t work out I won’t get detained. Did someone say “risk-seeking behavior”?

I exit the platform and head back where I came from. But wait you might say, you don’t even have a boarding pass, they tore it down in Tokyo. Ah but I do, I still have my electronic one I got after checking in online. It’s probably not valid, but it’s something. It’s the pair of cards I’m going to bluff with, acting as if it were a royal flush.

To transfer from one gate to another, I have to go through another automated checkpoint. Scan. Obviously, no go. Please wait for assistance. The woman in charge comes over, checks my boarding pass. Passport looks fine. Is it the wrong boarding pass? There’s two in there. No no it’s right. Well if it looks right, it must be right. Go ahead sir. The first step worked! I’m foolishly starting to believe this just might work. That kind lady just metaphorically handed me a third card, adding credence to my bluff — I must be fine, right, otherwise how did I even get there?

I get to the gate, and wait for a few minutes in one of the seats with a power outlet, giving some juice to my laptop. At boarding time, I queue up like everyone else. Arriving at the gate, I show my boarding pass (now a triplet, still not quite a royal flush). Scan. Doesn’t compute. The attendant asks me to wait and starts looking stuff up while his colleagues continue to let people into the plane.

After a few minutes, I’m the only one left, with the four crew members. Everyone else is on the plane. And that’s where the crew needs to go too. I know that, and I’m evil enough to expect the time pressure to play in my favor. They are speaking in Cantonese, so I don’t get any of it. They make several calls, keep checking their system and my passport, spelling my details over the phone. One of them asks me if I have any checked in luggage. Nope. Another asks the same a few minutes later. Should I have had some luggage? Would that have given them a reason to let me in if my luggage had already been on the plane? The crew in Tokyo would probably not have agreed to check my luggage to Shanghai anyway.

A little more time passes, more calls get made, more typing into the system, and also some loud old-style dot matrix printing. It’s getting close to departure time. I’m thinking the more they investigate my case the least likely it is that they’ll let me though. But then again, I would have bet my money (‘tis a day of gambling, it seems!) on either “instant no” or “instant yes”. And they’re still here and I don’t think the plane can take off without at least some of them, so that’s something.

After some more time and some more calls, one of the four asks me to come over towards the gate and, to my amazement, hands me a paper boarding pass and points to my seat number. I hurry to the plane before they change their mind.

Maybe the 4-man crew was running out of time to contact the right people and they gave me the benefit of the doubt because they had to go operate their flight. In that case, I guess my bluff worked. Or, someone, somewhere, decided to give me a pass. If so, I’m sending them good vibes wherever they are. Thank you, you allowed a little girl to spend one more day with her daddy. I might be some brat who thinks he has the right to do anything and believes the rules don’t apply to him. I was some of that today. I promise that most other days I try to be on the giving side of that “being kind to someone else” relationship. I promise I have zero symptoms, I’ve been wearing a mask all the time in Tokyo, and I promise I’m not a bad person. I’m just a little absentminded.

(Also, at the Shanghai airport, doing the QR code thing on arrival would have been totally fine. One argument in favor of some pre-boarding hard requirements being a little arbitrary.)

On the plane, when the flight attendant was going through the security instructions and it came to the proper behaviour to adopt if the crew ever says “brace! brace! brace!”, she instead pronounced “blaze! blaze! blaze!”. I’m glad I’m not superstitious.