Originally Posted by
Cathay Boy
Kind of surprise by this because that wasn't my experience at all. The lady only called for DMs and GOs and when no one stepped up I was hoping she would called SLs, but she didn't but instead called out numbers on a piece of paper for all of us like you said.
Also, don't know how she did it, but it wasn't by order of showing up either. I know a family of 6 was behind me and they got their seats before my number was called.
Think it has to do why the standbys occurred. Each time I've stood by at PVG it is due to long delays (those problematic problematic Chinese military ATC delays that are endemic to the Shanghai airspace), so everyone for the later flights showed up and realized the earlier flights hadn't taken off yet, so they tried to standby for the "earlier" flight (which is now probably taking off at the later flights' departure times). Hence each flight has basically all 200 people on the following flight standing by for it. It indeed is chaotic, but in my experience KA staff at PVG have a decent system figured out. Otherwise it would be chaos. Fridays are the worst of all...similar situation at PEK, albeit delays are less frequent there than PVG. Everybody is trying to get home before the weekend. When delays hit on Friday afternoon it sucks.