flyerred

I'm interested to hear what some of those reasons are that discourage Chinese companies from training employees after hire. Is it an issue of high turnover?

m.y

Those who are fluent in English are probably looking for other jobs. It is hard to learn English without being immersed in the environment, especially in China where testing is heavily focused towards reading and writing instead of speaking. Western airlines can hire Mandarin speakers from China, often at a lower cost, whereas Chinese airlines would have to pay more for native English speakers, or spend more on English training, with mixed result.

moondog

If you take a young person from Lanzhou, bring them to BJ or SH, and offer them 3x their previous salary, they will be happy for a few months, but will inevitably jump ship for a better opportunity at their earliest convenience. Expend resources training them, and they will jump to an even better ship and you'll be worse off.

Cathay Boy

chinese employees have no loyalty (can't blame them) and thus as soon as they are marketable elsewhere, and pays more, they will jump ship.

pcharles

I have an MU flight JFK-PVG booked in business class and it is supposed to be on an A340.

Having not heard many good things about MU, is there certain things to be overly aware of?

Is there a way to assign the seats priort to arrival at the airport?

My biggest bummer is hearing the lack in-flight service and amenities;
AVOD old and limited.
Power doesnt work in the seats
Food inconsistent and poor
Drinks, what drinks?
And most of all, it royally sucks they dont have the fully-flat 180 seats in business for the 15hr flight - I plan to bring an extra pillow to elevate my legs.

Anyone been on this flight lately and can share any of their experiences?

Jayz_004

I think a lot of these questions have been discussed upon recently. First, you can't get seat assignments before counter check-in unless you are MU Gold or Silver, even their Elites sometimes don't get that...
JFK-PVG is on a A346, which are indeed old and the problems you listed do occur. I personally sleep on most of my long-haul flights, so AVOD kinda goes out of the way, but in August, MU did an upgrade on its AVOD system, and the selection has grew a little, but honestly I still don't think it's any good...
I've mentioned about the power outlets in other threads, they don't work all the time, so be prepared and you might have to ask the FA to find you a working one.
Food-wise, I'd have to disagree with some folks here, I find the food on MU to be okay, if not decent. Especially up front, I find it quite alright. Drinks, however, is different. MU doesn't have a wide range of selection of liquor, that is true. So be prepared with just Tsing-dao or some random red wine.
Lie-flat I can't say much about it cause that's not something they can change right now I guess... They did roll out a dozen of A332 with fully-flat, but they are not in the Sino-US range.
Overall, my take is that once you read so many bad things about MU here on FT, it can't get worse, LOL... I've flown MU for 10 years now, mostly LAX/JFK-PVG recently, and they haven't driven me to AA/CO yet, but that's just me.
Hope this helps

Cathay Boy

I used to take MU JFK-PVG (something I wish to forget), it is horrid.

Food is horrific, I know some people aren't picky and can eat anything, but for those that are a bit selective on food, it's horrific.

AVOD is a waste of time for anything meaningful.

Service is non-existence.

Drinks are serve in small cups and asking for multiple drinks will earn you a stare, and then they will just ignore you.

Seat, ironically, can slide back and at least, allows me to sleep (the only positive.)

coolfish1103

That is the main reason why no one wants to train the Chinese employees to 100%. I do specify it's Chinese employees and not people from Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan. You will arrive at the following scenarios if you train them:

1. Higher wages will be demanded if they think they learned what you taught them already even though they probably only mastered 10%. They are so arrogant to the point where you have to pick out all their mistakes in order to shut them off. Even if you do that, they may just not show up for work the next day and let you do it all on your own.

2. Resignation letters will be on your table the moment they feel that they are a strong asset in the company even though they are easily replaceable. If someone in the same department is resigning, they will probably do it in attempt to receive higher wages because they might be doing those people's job, even though those people were probably on the position for more than 10 years (and they are only on their first year).

3. If there are higher wage position available at another company, even if the job is totally different from what they are currently experienced at, they will tell you another company has this offer and you either match it or go find someone else. There are no such things as responsibility or dignity. It's all about money.

4. Once they have learned enough from the company, they are unwilling the teach their subordinates because they want to control every little aspect of the company (then fail and create more problems that cannot be solved by just him/herself) and they are afraid to be overtaken by them. There are no cooperation between 90% of them and it's just to step on each other.

jiejie

What coolfish says is true about PRC employees. This makes the Human Resources function in a company operating in China, extremely important and challenging, compared to the sideline function it is often considered in some western countries. And the new labor law, in effect since late 2007/early 2008, makes it much more difficult to fire employees at-will. So as an employer, you need to think through policies and procedures very very carefully. This cuts across all industries.

Younger people from some of the biggest east coast cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, seem to have egos and opinions of themselves as big as all outdoors. Six months out of school and they want to be vice-presidents and managers, despite knowing squat and having poor working skills, and resist proper training (or little seems to stick). Many major companies are finding better employee attitudes in secondary cities nowadays.

jgeldof

Hi,

Long time lurker here.

I am flying MU from FRA to SYD via PVG on the 18th of Dec and was wondering how this works. I have purchased a very cheap economy fare (I think it is Q class). Assuming there is space available in business do I have to ask when checking in first or is it only done on board? Will they only take RMB or can I pay by card/euros/dollars/pounds?

Thanks!

Jayz_004

I'm assuming you are with Cathay now, haha... Cathay has always been top of the class in Asia, so I won't even compare MU with it~

Cathay Boy

I am just old that I probably shouldn't share this type of info on the forum, so I will be quiet now. Sorry for bringing it up.

moondog

Where is the "wink, wink" emoticon when you need it?

coolfish1103

RMB 600 is not too bad if it's quite a long trip. Is Cathay Boy trying to get someone fired?

I hope I didn't offend anyone on this forum cause I am sure there are Chinese viewing here, just personal experience. I have to say it's really a problem caused by the Chinese government due to 1-child per family rule. Kids get so spoiled and arrogant because their parents can still support them and young enough to work even after they are graduated from college.

It does get gradually better when you go up in age.

16 - 20 = Ignorant and knows nothing but pretends they know all
21 - 25 = Not loyal and jumps from company to company
26 - 30 = Arrogant and never admit to mistakes
31 - 35 = Lazy and try to do as little as possible
36 - 40 = Gets their job done and unwilling to help others unless extra $
41 - 45 = High ego and love to control everyone to get tasks done
46 - 50 = Negotiates well and commanding to get people on task

There are about 5-10% of the people that are not like this and they get much better if they have been in a foreign country for a while.

MegatopLover

I took China Eastern recently. Yesterday.

I flew JFK-PVG-BKK in Business, on a DL SkyMiles award ticket for 120,000 miles plus about $350 in YQ and tax. A positioning flight on DL would have upped the mileage considerably, so I bought a revenue ticket for that.

Checkin at JFK T1 was fine when I got there on the early side, around 12:30 pm for a 3:35 departure. The Y line was long, mostly students going back to China, from what I could tell. No one in the J line. Security was a mess, as all the smurfs were listening to a pep talk from Papa Smurf rather than actually playing security theatre.

Once through, I went to the AF lounge at the far end of T1. Spacious with lots of windows and a view of the access roads to the airport, but not of the ramp. KE also has a lounge in T1, but I didn't visit it. I was among the first there. Eventually it got more crowded with MU pax and the first AF pax of the evening. A boarding announcement was made. Boarding was at Gate 7, unremarkable.

Aircraft was an A346, B-6055 in Shanghai Expo livery. I was expecting lie-flat-at-an-angle seats in J, like I'd seen on airliners.net. Apparently, those are only or mostly on MU's A333's. This A346 had recliners similar to Delta's on the 763's. Most of the first row of J was reserved for crew rest, so for long stretches, no one was reclining into my space. J was full. F was empty, had no more than one or two regular pax. The rest of the time F was crew-occupied.

Service was slow to start. No pre-meal drinks or nibbly things. Eventually we were served dinner. Choice of Chinese or Western menus, the Western included a choice of beef or fish. The vast majority of pax were Asian; only one other white guy in J. Most pax I could see selected the Western menu, as did I. Beef was passable (better than AF's shoe leather ex-JFK). The wine was a fruit bomb. I was surprised to see Havana Club rum on board an ex-USA flight, and I stuck with that, though I'm not sure the FA's understood that I wanted Coke Light. Cheese was on the menu but not served, though the FA's seemed to have it at their disposal in the galley.

Only two lavs for J cabin. One was occupied for a long time, and the FA's would not let the queue use the F lav, even though there were no or only one or two real F pax. Then a sign went up that the long-occupied lav was out of order (what had gone on in there?), and we were allowed to use the F lav. On landing into PVG, I went forward to get changed out of my pajamas and was actually invited to use the crew rest bunks to change, which was interesting, to keep the lav open.

The recliners were actually all right. The bedding was very good-- a light down comforter with a bright white duvet-- softer, more lux feeling that DL's (which have an odd texture that I can't really place). The pillow was decent-sized, but not as good as DL's huge pillows. I was able to turn and sleep on my side, surprising for a recliner seat.
Wide selection of movies, about 60, mostly Asian. I kept the flighttracker on the whole time, tracing the polar route.

Amenity kit was Bvlgari. Body lotion, mouth rinse, toothpaste and collapsible brush, earplugs, razor and shave cream. Primary shortcomings were no on-board sox and no lip balm.

Arrival into PVG at 7:15 pm or so was fine, after a decent pre-arrival "breakfast" of eggs. MU gives you a nice long time to sleep between the end of the main after-takeoff meal and the pre-arrival meal.

At PVG, we had a long walk from Gate 22 back to the passport-control area. The Transit Hall was closed. I went through passport control, as directed. I was given a transit visa, which they didn't seem altogether accustomed to giving. I went downstairs and inquired at the baggage desk. I showed my bag claim and asked if my bags would be checked through to BKK. (I had interlined them with DL from ATL, so did not claim them at JFK, but made sure to give MU checkin the bag-tag numbers.) The agent in PVG told me they'd be sent through, no need to claim them, go right to Area 6 for transit-checkin. I was about to do just that but turned back, to watch the belt, just in case. Lo and behold, there were my bags. I collected them, took them to the same fellow at the baggage-inquiry desk and asked what to do. He checked the bag tags, found them checked to BKK, went on the radio and then came back to address me: leave them here with me, and they'll be taken back through and sent onward to Bangkok.

So I did. Walked to Area 6: a bag belt with checkin desks airside of China Customs. I got my BP there (it was not issued to me at JFK) and went through a funny little side door, by-passing China Customs, and told to go upstairs to Level 3, the main checkin area of T1. I went straight to outbound immigration. I did not get an outbound stamp for some reason, maybe not necessary on a transit visa.

Apparently the main PVG T1 Business Class lounge for MU is undergoing renovations. I was directed to a lounge downstairs at Gate 22: small and dark with no view. Hot food, of which I did not partake. No showers, small bathroom with no amenities. A boarding announcement was made for the BKK flight, which was displayed as departing from "Gate 214." That's a bus gate. We were walked out at Gate 22 and shown to a separate bus of just J pax, then bussed a long way to a remove parking stand, where I found not the A333 I was expecting but an AB6. Seats were clunky old recliners with crappy pitch and recline. The meal for this 9:40 departure was pretty spartan, nothing like what you get on, say, KE's evening ICN-BKK runs or DL NRT-BKK. Wine still sucked, and was served (as on JFK-PVG) in a tiny brandy snifter. No liquor on board. No PTV's in the seats or handheld players offered. I just went to sleep. At least J was half-empty.

Parked at Suvarnabhumi Gate E6, next to an EK A380, on time at 12:55 am. No line at all at Immigration. Bags took a long time to come up but otherwise everything was in good order.

I would take MU again, but all things being equal (price, in dollars or miles) I'd much sooner be on KE or DL.