The Airline Test

Here are some observations on my personal experience with three different airlines in July 2009.

At Qantas, they do not seem to stock copies of magazines aboard the aircraft, whether for domestic or international flights. This is a far cry from travel expectations on long haul flights or those above three hours in duration. Perhaps the current global financial crisis has dictated cuts in such basic services.
I did love the user-friendly navigation logic of Q on-board entertainment, better than that of Singapore Air (SIA). Your personal remote control for movies, audio and the like also rests in a more ergonomic way than that for either Malaysian Airlines (MAS) or SIA.

The stiff upper lip is still well alive and kicking in some Qantas cabin crew members - some individual staff members have perfected the art of saying goodbye or thank you to disembarking passengers by looking at the ceiling and not at the customers. However, the demographics of the Flying Kangaroo staff in the air are beginning to reflect the crowds on a Melbourne or Sydney CBD street. Although MAS crew are beginning to perhaps level the playing field by also smiling at non-Caucasian passengers, the best vibes of welcome for every customer are still sent by the beaming smiles of SIA cabin crew. The reality of joint code sharing between two or three airlines on a single consolidated flight may be the best thing to infuse the best of a service culture amongst airlines in alliance.

Qantas does not even print a menu booklet for some passenger sectors on domestic flights. On the other hand, the airline is conscientious to supply gluten-free, dairy free and organic stuff once you have made requests ahead of the flights.

The state of Qantas toilets made me think I was in some crowded city suburb. They no longer meet the standards met only ten years ago - wet, unkempt and perhaps not cleaned on a regular basis for flights of more than three hours.

I applied a simple test on the flights I took on the three airlines recently. This was me asking simply for a pack of playing cards. On the flight from Sydney to Perth, the Qantas crew member said they do not supply such things on domestic flights. From Perth to Singapore, they did not have stocks aboard. The MAS crew were so busy trying to serve rolls and drinks even on a 45 minute haul between the nearby cities of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. When I made the same request on the flight from Penang to Singapore, the lady instinctively gave me three packs instead, surpassing my expectations. And yes, I can confirm that SIA staff members politely look at you when talking to you - they take it to heart that they are in a service industry and business.

Scenes from Singapore

Singapore CBD in miniature



Outlet cooking wantan egg noodles at Tiong Bharu Market Food Court



The new Singapore River mouth


National street food of Singapore - Hainan-styled chicken rice, this stall from Tanjung Pagar Food Centre



Planned Sports Hub for the City State



New and old at Raffles City

Equatorial Harvest

Mangosteens and guavas



Hanging durians - the king of fruits - and pomeloes from the grapefruit family



Produce of the Equatorial Belt



View from the highway, travelling north, near limestone outcrops



Jungle string beans (petai), pomeloes, purple coloured mangosteens and sour mangoes



Steamed soft shell groundnuts



Langsat berries, with clear transparent succulent insides after you peel off their thin skins

Winter Nights

Manly Beach never looked and shone better than on a July winter's night. The electric lights of shop signs took centre stage, with Manly this and Manly that. The white foam of a gentle tide matched the silence of the sea side under an almost full moon. The roads near the Esplanade and the Wharf remained narrow, and fitness obsessed runners trudged their way in the semi-darkness on the surrounding pavements.

We just had dinner at Ginger & Spice along Military Road in Sydney's lower North Shore - a motley but rather amiable group from Alberta (Ed and Adrian), Auckland (Shaun and Adelyn), Wollongong, Cammeray (Ella) and Neutral Bay(Doris, Rob and Arlene). I loved the tender and smooth Hainan chicken rice, accentuated in the mouth with three concoctions - lime-flavoured pound chili sauce, dark soy sauce and a ginger condiment. Doris liked the Singapore noodles, whilst most went for sago dessert, bathed in palm sugar and coconut milk, to close up the meal. I could not resist the ice kacang, a slurpy sorbet ice-shave pile garnished with cooked red beans, pineapple slices, black jelly bits and more. The Singapore styled ice kacang was so different from the Penang version. The chili prawns had an appetising sauce, and contrasted with the stir-fry freshness and clear taste of the bok choy. Meat curry with chicken stock flavoured rice exemplified the fusion of South-east Asian, Indian and Chinese cuisines. The smoked hor fun was definitely Cantonese.

I found a pair of Mossimo black denim that I liked the next evening at Wollongong's Crown Street Mall. Some things are meant to be ours, others for browsing and not taking up at all. Oh yes, there is the Rodd & Gunn trousers that I spotted at the St Ives Village long ago, but did not follow up. On the Saturday night following Adelyn's arrival from Auckland, we discovered a secret gem of an Italian restaurant only three minutes drive from my place. Il Nido was packed even by 6pm, and with lots of families. We were fortunate to get a table - and we tucked in the lamb cutlets wrapped with prosciutto, four types of thin crusted pizza samplings and the seafood fettuccine.

Lip Service

I was instinctively disturbed by a news story , based on some university research, about job applicants, with names that are not Anglo sounding, facing more daunting challenges in getting a job in Australia. There were percentages quoted of how many more applications such individuals had to make before they were successful, ranging the lowest for those with Italian ancestry, to the highest with Chinese names. I found it odd that one could link this single factor - names and what they represent -with such a high impact on impressions from recruiters of individual candidates, even before they were considered for an interview. What about personality, qualifications, experience, the ability to effectively communicate and a past record of team work?

This evening, on a day with weather rather best suited to stay-at-home, I came across the persistent efforts of a dear old pensioner lady in New South Wales in trying to ensure that a complaint she had was followed up. It all started with a a tin of canned fruit that caused her negative health effects after she consumed part of the contents. She wrote to the regulatory authorities in her state of New South Wales and to the Federal officials in Canberra, but was told that it was a Victorian state matter, as the manufacturer of the can in question was Goulburn Valley based in Shepparton. The length of time it has taken for her complaint to receive any inkling of a solution or through the intermediate replies is shockingly long. For example, it took six weeks for a Canberra official to reply to her. The matter I understand has still not been resolved.

In the interim, the evidence of the can, which she kept in her home refrigerator, exploded, due to the understandably long fermentation. Industry practice is to not allow such canned food to be consumed four years after it is manufactured, but it looks like the fruit in the can relating to this complaint was made eight years ago and still being sold to that lady earlier this year.

Charade or parade, legislation is meant to provide and protect and nurture equity.
Why are laws passed, and then applied unwillingly, variably or not at all? Maybe it is better to have not passed such laws, if the supporting practice and bureaucracy show that those responsible for implementation are in obvious disagreement with the tenets of the applicable law. Private or public resources are unnecessarily spent to make a semblance of acknowledgement of the related legislation, but which practically never helps the individuals they were meant to protect.

It all boils down to this: there can be no trust for someone who is too afraid to show true colours upfront.