Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Kiasu-ism

Kuching people ... ok .. no wait. Sarawakians have this general "kiasu-ism" attitude when it comes to boarding flights. Due to my work, I fly quite frequently and because of that, I spend a fair bit of my time @ the airport departure hall waiting to board my flight. It's amazing. Really. Regardless of where the flight is to, or what sorta Airline service that they are using, they ALWAYS ALWAYS queue up right @ the beginning of the queue damm early one. Either that or they will just cut into the queue. In general other than that, Sarawakians are real nice people. Its until that moment in time when they are taking a flight, there's this "kiasu" monster that somehow appears. Taking a flight via MAS also ... must push to the front. Does it really make any difference if you queue right @ the beginning? Will the flight leave faster then? I highly doubt so. Plus if you're using a non low budget airline, your seats are ALREADY ALLOCATED. Nobody can take another person's seat! With low budget airline(s) I can understand slightly the need to rush as some people do prefer certain seating positions.




But there are also these group of people whom actually are well off .. but due to some reason(s) (could be availability of flight, cutting cost or whatever...) who can actually pay a little bit extra to board the flight beforehand who somehow, refuses to. But yet they complain about people who DO pay the extra to board first! Erm .. yes, I'm grumbling about this issue now basically because this did happen to me. Well ... ok not to me directly but I was in that group of passengers that this particular "old" man was complaining loudly about. It just so happened that I was boarding a flight over to KL for a meeting. Yesh .. my company cut cost lo, use Air Asia (dammit .. there goes my frequent flyer points!!) and @ that point of time, Air Asia has just launched their X-press Boarding programme (http://www.airasia.com/site/en/page.jsp?reference=xpressboarding) You basically need to pay additional RM40 (for return ticket) on to of your the price for your air ticket to board before all other passengers. I thought this is a pretty good idea. If you dont like to queue and like to board first, then hey, pay the additonal RM40 (which by the way is only applicable for flights within M'sia I think). So yeah .. since it was new and all, I decided to give it a whirl. There were a few other passengers besides me who took up the offer. None of them were Sarawakian(yeah .. I did talk to them and all since we were asked to queue in a different group when it was time to board), and this "ah pek" started complaining very loudly to other passengers.




Firstly, he complained that we were cutting the queue. Why were getting special "treatment". We didnt look like a senior citizen. He however is a senior citizen and is asked to queue up. Ok .. now allow me to divert off from what I'm complaining first. Yes, yes, keep on diversifying one boh.. I know. I do NOT agree with Air Asia for taking away the priveleges for senior citizen to board the flight beforehand and expecting them to pay for the X-press Boarding too. Im sure that yes, there are some people out there who might say or think that they should be paying too. However, in MY opinion, they are labelled SENIOR citizens for a reason. They're already frail and obviously not as "tough" as the younger generation. During the time when I first took the X-Press boarding, their rights were waived, HOWEVER, I'm given the understanding, that Air Asia has reinstated back that senior citizens are allowed to board first once more WITHOUT having to buy the X-Press boarding. And I'm glad to hear that. I mean if you know of anyone (ie your own parents or relatives) who're old and happen to be taking an Air Asia flight, you won't want them to have to queue and push around with a whole bunch of healtier and tougher not to mention younger people.




Back to my complain ... then ah when somebody kindly explained to him that those (referring to us) group of people paid extra money to board first, he still got some more negative things to say about us!! "Aiyorrr.. those young people ah! Pay more just to board first. So lazy meh?! So difficult to queue up ah? Want to just show off that can go up the plane first ah?" I mean AH PEK AHHHH.. its OUR money what!!! We paid for it because we wanted the convenience. If you're gonna be such a sour puss about it, YOU coulda paid the extra and boarded first too! Hah!!!




The next trip that I took, I decided to just wait in the queue. Afterall, I wasn't in much of a hurry and I was travelling alone. So it didnt really matter much to me. Besides, I wasn't flying to a new destination (to me) so not having a window seat was fine with me. All in all, I do prefer the aisle seat since it means that its easier for me to access to the washroom without having to asked to be excused on the way out from seat. This trip around, when I walked into the departure hall, I thought my watch was malfunctioning!! Everyone was already up @ the queue!!! Long one it was too!! Its the queue where everyone was preparing to board the flight. Frantically, I dug into my pocket for my cellphone. Checked the time .. correctly le. Same time as my watch ler. Then I realised that those people were all queing for the flight ONE AND HALF HOURS before the departure time!!!! *faints*



The queue was a lot longer ... my camera couldn't capture the whole queue!

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