With angry people while in transit
I landed at Kuala Lumpur on time at 0805 for 55 min connection to Singapore departing at 0900. My connection turned out to be at the same gate on the same aircraft 9M-MKR. I only had to disembark and re-enter the gate via the security screening.
While at the counter, the Captain showed up. He noticed that that the aircraft MKR and wasn’t happy. He had expected 9M-MKS, which was probably in a standard configuration, weights etc. He made a few phone calls and then we had an aircraft change and consequently a gate change.
All passengers had to walk to the new gate. An American passenger was quite upset. Without knowing the cause, he said “There are never such gate changes with Singapore Airlines. Singapore Airlines is always very well-organised”. I said, “Like slamming a 747 into ground equipment on a closed runway in Taipei?” Having worked at an airline before, I know that such changes are unavoidable at times. Sometimes airline juggle aircraft to minimise or balance the inconvenience to different flights.
Like Singapore airport, security screening is done gate-by-gate, so we had to re-screen through security. Here, the staff asked for the men and ladies to form different queues. An executive-type Singaporean man said “Look at this Muslim nonsense … this will be the worst airport in the world and this will be the worst airline”. I replied “This is for the patting down as part of the security check, my friend”. Some people believe what they want to believe.
We left about half hour late on 9M-MKH. It seemed like an older aircraft and made more noises than the one I had just been on.
With family in Singapore
Landing at the Lion City of Singapore, I took a taxi to step-dad’s place. I was happy to see Mum. We will all go to my hometown Kuching in a couple of days.
I helped step-dad wire some money to Kuching for his impending house purchase and rested. In the evening, we had dinner with step-dad’s nephew Jacob and his wife Janet. Fortunately the chats with Jacob didn’t get too contentious this time. As I showed them my photos from India, you could see their discomfort with anything third-world.