A mobile phone so you can talk louder into it than the person sat next to you in the departures lounge? Wads of RMB so you can buy a small bottle of water? Sackfuls of patience for dealing with the whole unpleasant episode of getting from A to B by plane in China? No, what you need most is a very good travel agent.

The skies above China are, despite recently highly-touted flight number cutbacks at Beijing Capital Airport, getting extremely crowded, and flight cancellations are a real hazard for the China air warrior. Booking cancellations are also seemingly pretty frequent. This morning my extremely good travel agent called me breathlessly to tell me that the flight reservation, made the previous day, from Xi'an to Shanghai had been summarily cancelled overnight. I asked her why and she replied that this just sometimes happens, and that there is very little agents or passengers can do about. Overbooking, it seems, would most logically be the reasoning for such customer unfriendliness on the part of the airlines.

However, within five minutes, my agent had reeled off a healthy list of flight alternatives, mostly - and I like the way she did this - with different airlines to the original booking and some at better prices. We did the deal verbally, and she emailed me the e-ticket number a few minutes later.

A simple tale, but cautionary nonetheless. If my agent had not called to inform me, I would not have known my booking was cancelled, because the airline did not advise me. And the chances are I would have been stuck at Xi'an airport very late at night scarlet-faced and fuming with rage - and having eaten my sandwich, drunk my coffee and water, read my book and used up all those sackfuls of patience I had carefully packed in my hand luggage.

Last update : Monday, 08 October 2007

Keywords : Traveling, Travel Agent, Service, Airlines

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