moondog
Oct 8, 02, 3:16 am
INTRODUCTION
I flew from PVG to SFO this morning on All Nippon Airlines in Y class. This report summarizes my experiences and impressions. All in all, the flights were okay and I received good service from most people I encountered, but there were a few exceptions that were so offensive that I'm unlikely to use the return portion of my ticket on NH without a convincing apology from them.
CHECKIN
I arrived at PVG at 9:00 for my 11:00 flight, a bit earlier than usual for me, but I took the public bus so I wanted to give myself a little extra time. The checkin area for NH and UA was relatively empty, just as was the case last week when I dropped off my friend. I checked in the business class line because of my *G status and received fast and what I thought was excellent service (see NRT TRANSIT COUNTER and SFO BAGGAGE CLAIM for more on this topic) from the Chinese ground staff, which affixed purple F class tags on my two large bags in addition to the standard *A priority tag. He also gave me Signet Lounge passes for PVG and NRT.
SIGNET LOUNGE
After clearing immigration and making a few duty free purchases, I went downstairs to the lounge area. ANA has two lounges in Shanghai, which it shares with other *A carriers, the Club ANA Lounge (for business class) and the Signet Lounge (for first class). Note, I had no idea the Signet Lounge was the F lounge until I showed up at the door. So, I entered and discovered that I was the only lounge guest and would remain so up until flight time. (This makes some sense since my PVG-NRT flight didn't have an F cabin.) The lounge was pretty mediocre as far as lounges go (disgusting pastries, poor lighting, limited magazine selection). On the other hand, it was a relaxing place to wait for my flight, so I have no reason to complain.
NH812 PVG-NRT; 2-class 777; seat 19K
The plane was a 3-3-3 configuration in Y. My seat was a window in the first row of Y, with a flip up TV monitor; legroom was very good (around 38") for a bulkhead, but the armrests were immovable. Y was about 25% full and there were only 1 or 2 pax in C (out of 59 seats). The coolest thing about NH is that, in addition to the airshow, they have a camera on the nose of the plane that broadcasts on the entertainment system. This was very interested during taxi, take-off, and landing, and also pretty neat during flight because you get to see what's below. There were also about 10 video channels (on demand in F and C; UA style in the back), 10 audio channels, and a bunch of old school Nintendo games. The movie selection was decent (the presence of two Hugh Grant titles earned them props in my book) as were the short features and the games, but I couldn't find anything worth listening to on the audio system. In any case, I kept myself occupied by alternating between "Friends", the camera channel, the map, and listening to bad J-pop.
Shortly after takeoff, the FAs came through with hot towells (the same kind I get on MU), drinks, and lunch. I ordered a beer because the wines looked pretty bad. Lunch consisted of a pork dish, soba noodles, a smoked salmon plate, some fruit, and a mystery dessert. Except for the noodles and the beer, the food was downright awful. I dare say even worse than what I typically get on my SHA-PEK flights.
It took the FAs a surprisingly long time to pick up my tray after lunch considering the flight was so empty, but that was no big deal because I simply put my leftovers on the seat next to me. They eventually came back just before we started our descent into NRT. We flew out over the Pacific and approached the airport from the east. As I preluded eariler, the camera channel is amazing (heart-stopping even) on landing. It's also worth noting that the guy who helps park the plane with the orange things (sorry, I don't know what those people are called) pulled off a tremendous bow after the plane came to stop. This gave me a laugh and made me feel kind of warm inside.
NRT TRANSIT COUNTER
I didn't think I need to go the transit counter because I already had a BP for the SFO flight, but the woman meeting the flight hearded all transit pax there so I complied. When I got to the front of the line, I put my ticket envelope on the counter and fished out my relevant flight coupon and BP and gave to the check-in lady. As I was doing so, she noticed my Signet Lounge pass in MY ENVELOPE, GRABBED IT, and TORE IT UP. The next words out of her mouth were, "How did you get that?" When I told her that I got it in Shanghai, she angrily typed a few things into her computer and muttered something about, "disciplinary action". Meanwhile, she cranked out a new BP (same seat, just different color) along with a Club ANA Lounge Pass, which she handed me without making eye contact. Although I was a bit nonplussed by her invasive and unprofessional behavior, I kept my feelings to myself, and marched on through security. Next, I grabbed some noodles and headed for the Club ANA Lounge closest to my new gate.
CLUB ANA LOUNGE
I had heard a lot of bad things about this lounge, so I was surprised to find a relatively pleasent place: big windows looking dead on at 747, beer machine, decent drink selection (food was not substantial), clean bathrooms, lockers, and very nice staff (they helped me call some friends in Japan, blocked the middle seat next ne on my flight, refilled the beer machine at my request, and personally came to get me and my newly made friends when the SFO flight was ready for boarding.)
NH008 NRT-SFO; 3-class 777; seat 29K
This plane was similar to the previous one except for the fact that it had a small F cabin in front of business class. It appeared to be about 60% full in all classes. My seat was a normal window seat this time and had about 34" of pitch (almost as good as E+ on UA). One thing worth noting because it may qualify as a small nusciance is that all of the window seats and the left most seats in the middle bank house the hardware for the entertainment system, so legloom is little limited (this didn't bother me though). The flight itself was not very eventful. I watched more movies, drank more beer (the booze selection was not very good -- only Jameson whiskey), wrote some letters, picked at the dinner (very small piece of fish and some odd side dishes -- even worse than meal on first flight), crashed out about at about 5 hours into the flight, and woke up on approach into SFO. Just as was the case with my first flight, it was a pleasure watching the approach on the video monitors -- a 777 moves up the Penninsula a lot faster than my Honda.
SFO BAGGAGE CLAIM + EDITORIAL
Immigration took all of 1 minute and I went off to the baggage claim area with the people I met at the lounge in NRT. I also ran into a girl from one of my classes at SU in the baggage area. Obviously, I expected to see my bags pretty quick since they had those F tags on them. Bags started coming, and coming, and coming. The guys from the lounge took off about 3 minutes into the process after getting their bags. Meanwhile, the girl from my class stuck around an extra 10 minutes to chat. Eventually, she left as well because the line at customs was getting longer and longer. About 10 minutes later very few people remained, but my bags finally showed, only without priority tags, NONE AT ALL in fact. This was quite upsetting to me, not because I really minded waiting the extra 20 minutes nor because I really care about *G status, but because someone at ANA (I have a pretty good guess as to who!) took it upon themself to see to it that my bags did not get any sort of special treatment. While it may be counterproductive to let such a minor bump in the road determine my future travel strategies, I have a very hard time doing business with companies or persons that don't respect me. Moreover, I fear that the nice gentleman in Shanghai is probably receiving unnecessary grief for giving me the wrong lounge passes and baggage tags, even though he probably didn't know better. Thus even though I received a lot of great service during my flights, the fact that something so offensive can and did happen taints the entire experience. Accordingly, I've already made alternate arrangements to get back to Shanghai. However, I'm optimistic that I will make peace with ANA (all I want is an apology and an explanation) before my return flight on the 21st. In fact, the station manager to whom I reported the espisode in San Francisco was quite understanding and promised to do a complete follow-up. I filed a similar complaint with the managers in the Beijing and Shanghai sales offices who are also looking into it.
Your comments are appreciated.
I flew from PVG to SFO this morning on All Nippon Airlines in Y class. This report summarizes my experiences and impressions. All in all, the flights were okay and I received good service from most people I encountered, but there were a few exceptions that were so offensive that I'm unlikely to use the return portion of my ticket on NH without a convincing apology from them.
CHECKIN
I arrived at PVG at 9:00 for my 11:00 flight, a bit earlier than usual for me, but I took the public bus so I wanted to give myself a little extra time. The checkin area for NH and UA was relatively empty, just as was the case last week when I dropped off my friend. I checked in the business class line because of my *G status and received fast and what I thought was excellent service (see NRT TRANSIT COUNTER and SFO BAGGAGE CLAIM for more on this topic) from the Chinese ground staff, which affixed purple F class tags on my two large bags in addition to the standard *A priority tag. He also gave me Signet Lounge passes for PVG and NRT.
SIGNET LOUNGE
After clearing immigration and making a few duty free purchases, I went downstairs to the lounge area. ANA has two lounges in Shanghai, which it shares with other *A carriers, the Club ANA Lounge (for business class) and the Signet Lounge (for first class). Note, I had no idea the Signet Lounge was the F lounge until I showed up at the door. So, I entered and discovered that I was the only lounge guest and would remain so up until flight time. (This makes some sense since my PVG-NRT flight didn't have an F cabin.) The lounge was pretty mediocre as far as lounges go (disgusting pastries, poor lighting, limited magazine selection). On the other hand, it was a relaxing place to wait for my flight, so I have no reason to complain.
NH812 PVG-NRT; 2-class 777; seat 19K
The plane was a 3-3-3 configuration in Y. My seat was a window in the first row of Y, with a flip up TV monitor; legroom was very good (around 38") for a bulkhead, but the armrests were immovable. Y was about 25% full and there were only 1 or 2 pax in C (out of 59 seats). The coolest thing about NH is that, in addition to the airshow, they have a camera on the nose of the plane that broadcasts on the entertainment system. This was very interested during taxi, take-off, and landing, and also pretty neat during flight because you get to see what's below. There were also about 10 video channels (on demand in F and C; UA style in the back), 10 audio channels, and a bunch of old school Nintendo games. The movie selection was decent (the presence of two Hugh Grant titles earned them props in my book) as were the short features and the games, but I couldn't find anything worth listening to on the audio system. In any case, I kept myself occupied by alternating between "Friends", the camera channel, the map, and listening to bad J-pop.
Shortly after takeoff, the FAs came through with hot towells (the same kind I get on MU), drinks, and lunch. I ordered a beer because the wines looked pretty bad. Lunch consisted of a pork dish, soba noodles, a smoked salmon plate, some fruit, and a mystery dessert. Except for the noodles and the beer, the food was downright awful. I dare say even worse than what I typically get on my SHA-PEK flights.
It took the FAs a surprisingly long time to pick up my tray after lunch considering the flight was so empty, but that was no big deal because I simply put my leftovers on the seat next to me. They eventually came back just before we started our descent into NRT. We flew out over the Pacific and approached the airport from the east. As I preluded eariler, the camera channel is amazing (heart-stopping even) on landing. It's also worth noting that the guy who helps park the plane with the orange things (sorry, I don't know what those people are called) pulled off a tremendous bow after the plane came to stop. This gave me a laugh and made me feel kind of warm inside.
NRT TRANSIT COUNTER
I didn't think I need to go the transit counter because I already had a BP for the SFO flight, but the woman meeting the flight hearded all transit pax there so I complied. When I got to the front of the line, I put my ticket envelope on the counter and fished out my relevant flight coupon and BP and gave to the check-in lady. As I was doing so, she noticed my Signet Lounge pass in MY ENVELOPE, GRABBED IT, and TORE IT UP. The next words out of her mouth were, "How did you get that?" When I told her that I got it in Shanghai, she angrily typed a few things into her computer and muttered something about, "disciplinary action". Meanwhile, she cranked out a new BP (same seat, just different color) along with a Club ANA Lounge Pass, which she handed me without making eye contact. Although I was a bit nonplussed by her invasive and unprofessional behavior, I kept my feelings to myself, and marched on through security. Next, I grabbed some noodles and headed for the Club ANA Lounge closest to my new gate.
CLUB ANA LOUNGE
I had heard a lot of bad things about this lounge, so I was surprised to find a relatively pleasent place: big windows looking dead on at 747, beer machine, decent drink selection (food was not substantial), clean bathrooms, lockers, and very nice staff (they helped me call some friends in Japan, blocked the middle seat next ne on my flight, refilled the beer machine at my request, and personally came to get me and my newly made friends when the SFO flight was ready for boarding.)
NH008 NRT-SFO; 3-class 777; seat 29K
This plane was similar to the previous one except for the fact that it had a small F cabin in front of business class. It appeared to be about 60% full in all classes. My seat was a normal window seat this time and had about 34" of pitch (almost as good as E+ on UA). One thing worth noting because it may qualify as a small nusciance is that all of the window seats and the left most seats in the middle bank house the hardware for the entertainment system, so legloom is little limited (this didn't bother me though). The flight itself was not very eventful. I watched more movies, drank more beer (the booze selection was not very good -- only Jameson whiskey), wrote some letters, picked at the dinner (very small piece of fish and some odd side dishes -- even worse than meal on first flight), crashed out about at about 5 hours into the flight, and woke up on approach into SFO. Just as was the case with my first flight, it was a pleasure watching the approach on the video monitors -- a 777 moves up the Penninsula a lot faster than my Honda.
SFO BAGGAGE CLAIM + EDITORIAL
Immigration took all of 1 minute and I went off to the baggage claim area with the people I met at the lounge in NRT. I also ran into a girl from one of my classes at SU in the baggage area. Obviously, I expected to see my bags pretty quick since they had those F tags on them. Bags started coming, and coming, and coming. The guys from the lounge took off about 3 minutes into the process after getting their bags. Meanwhile, the girl from my class stuck around an extra 10 minutes to chat. Eventually, she left as well because the line at customs was getting longer and longer. About 10 minutes later very few people remained, but my bags finally showed, only without priority tags, NONE AT ALL in fact. This was quite upsetting to me, not because I really minded waiting the extra 20 minutes nor because I really care about *G status, but because someone at ANA (I have a pretty good guess as to who!) took it upon themself to see to it that my bags did not get any sort of special treatment. While it may be counterproductive to let such a minor bump in the road determine my future travel strategies, I have a very hard time doing business with companies or persons that don't respect me. Moreover, I fear that the nice gentleman in Shanghai is probably receiving unnecessary grief for giving me the wrong lounge passes and baggage tags, even though he probably didn't know better. Thus even though I received a lot of great service during my flights, the fact that something so offensive can and did happen taints the entire experience. Accordingly, I've already made alternate arrangements to get back to Shanghai. However, I'm optimistic that I will make peace with ANA (all I want is an apology and an explanation) before my return flight on the 21st. In fact, the station manager to whom I reported the espisode in San Francisco was quite understanding and promised to do a complete follow-up. I filed a similar complaint with the managers in the Beijing and Shanghai sales offices who are also looking into it.
Your comments are appreciated.