Sunday, February 3, 2013

Flying on Camus airways to the land of George Orwell's mid-youth

The airline attendant for China Southern airlines typed in my passport information for check-in, a strange, stiff purple bow restricting her downward head movements.
"I'm sorry, you are not on this flight." the lady said.
"Yes, I am. Look again." I said, trying to ignore the ominous, but oh-so-usual sense that something that could be so easy was going to be blown up into a huge ordeal.
Click-Click-Click.  The attendant continuously typed for a few minutes.
"I'm sorry, your flight has been cancelled."
"No, it hasn't.  Please look again." I measured my words.
"I'm sorry, that flight is not happening today. Your flight is maybe tomorrow." She informed me.  I silently handed her the printed itinerary of my flight, printed out shortly before I left for the airport.  This itinerary conflicted with everything she had just told me.  She looked at the document, then looked back at me.
"Can I please see the visa for Myanmar and your passport?"
"Click-click-click" She typed away for a minute, quickly conferred with a coworker, then handed me my ticket.  "Enjoy your flight."
Stunned at my good luck, I made my way towards the gate.

8 hours later in Kunming

"I'm sorry, you are not on this flight." The attendant informed my friend, Bridget.
"I'm sorry, your flight has been cancelled."
"I'm sorry, you are on the flight tomorrow."
"Enjoy your flight."

Almost verbatim, the entire conversation repeated itself, with the same result.

So many questions. Starting with,  Why did you think that flight was cancelled? And if so, why were you checking people into a non-existent flight? Nothing made any sense, nor followed any sort of logical linear thinking.  But we were not ones to investigate our tiny miracle too closely, we clutched our tickets and headed towards our gate before the computer system could change its mind.
To Myanmar (Burma) ! And yes, that plane is as small as it looks.


Bridget and I tried to unravel the mystery as we boarded the tiny plane that would take us into Myanmar/Burma.  Even if we assumed the worst, that they were just lying to us at out of random malevolence, it still made no sense, as clearly, no one would have ever believed them after watching them check in everyone else in line onto that same flight.  The best working theory that we could come up with was cognitive dissonance amongst the staff; despite their actual knowledge that the flight did exist, they innately believed whatever the computer told them. But no harm, no foul, as we made it as we boarded the final leg of our flight to Myanmar.











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