Janhoo's Blog

I wrote the below rant about Korean Air the other day, though I did not get a chance to post it. Right now I am sitting in a lounge in Schipol Airport, and I just got back from seeing the Anne Frank Museum. I am catching a flight to Vienna in about one hour. Amsterdam was really showing itself from its best side this morning. It seems like everyone is Amsterdam bicycles to work, and there are hardly any cars to be seen. This is probably a result of the city being better suited for cycling than for driving, and it certainly makes the town much more pleasant. Amsterdam feels like a small town, and when it is sunny the canals look more beautiful than ever.

The Anne Frank Museum is a great place to visit. I think it is worthwhile once in a while to relearn the lessons of the Second World War. There was already a fairly long line around 8:30 AM (the museum opens at 9 AM), thus you're hereby advised to visit the museum early in the morning or late in the afternoon.

Anyway, back to my Korean Air rant:

While I have already flown around the world a few times, and up and down as well, I still find flying to be rather fascinating. At least, that is, for the first 1 hour or so of each flight.

The amusement usually starts before boarding, when lots of frantic business men and other passengers feel a strong urge to grab their cell phone and call someone. I have yet to hear anyone having a meaningful or important conversation, the topic is mainly that they are about to board the plane (like that is some fantastic achievement) or that the plane is five minutes late. These days, taking a flight is barely more expensive than getting on a bus or a train, but I am glad more people than me still find it exciting to get on a plane and feel like bragging about it.

Now, each plane ride usually ends up having its share of horrors. In the US, it generally takes hours to board a plane as everyone is watching their space and usually blocking the aisle with their huge bodies. There is usually never sufficient storage space in the overheard compartment bins, a problem that is likely just to get worse as airlines start charging for checked luggage (like American Airlines just announced). It is not long ago that I read a WSJ article about how airlines need to schedule significantly more time for boarding in Europe and the US compared with for example Japan. The Japanese are simply more organized, not to mention that an average Japanese person will not manage to block an entire aisle.

Anyway, today I flew Korean Air from Incehon to Vienna. While I have flown Korean Air several times already, I only have positive memories, and they mainly relate to sexy stewardesses (very important) and relatively good airplane food (also important). They have also been kind to upgrade me on a few occasions, which is one of the reasons why I chose to fly with them again on my way back to Europe for a brief holiday.

While Japan and South-Korea are only separated by the Sea of Japan (or the East Sea as Korea prefers to call it), the cultural divide between the two countries is huge. While I have unfortunately never had the pleasure of living in Korea, the temperament of the Koreans is completely different from that of the Japanese. While passengers on a Japanese transcontinental flight barely will make a sound for 12 hours, on a Korean flight you will see Koreans up and about running through the aisles. On today's flight, a random Korean grandmother type started singing a traditional Korean song, and enthused passengers (me excluded) cheered her on. The flight was noisy the entire way to Vienna, and I barely managed to catch a couple of hours of sleep.

Anyway, I guess the only way to guarantee a pleasant flight is to fork out the thousands of bucks you need to buy a business class ticket. Unfortunately, I don't have the will or cash to do that right now.