Having been evicted from the skies for so long, I had almost forgotten what the experience was like – thankfully this flight demonstrated that I was not alone, and some crew had also forgotten; culminating in me trying to ungracefully wolf down a highly questionable meal in several minutes flat before it was aggressively taken back off me, in advance of landing.
Airline: Malaysia Airlines MH1149
Route: Penang – Kuala Lumpur (Approx. 1 hour)
Class: Business
A short flight anywhere in the world almost sentences the unfortunate business class passenger to a hurried, less-than-elegant affair, but what transpired on this afternoon’s flight was a particularly grim affair.
For reasons unknown to myself, Malaysia Airlines’ crew have made the unusual decision to start service form the rear of the single-aisle business class cabin, ensuring – potentially – that those of us closer to the front can take our time to use the washroom after the stress of take-off. At least that’s the only explanation I can come up with.
This would of course be perfectly acceptable – I haven’t yet reached the self-entitled levels of a noticeable portion of the Row 1 travelling public and strictly need to be served first – if of course there were adequate crew to handle this given the short duration. Unfortunately our cabin manager on this service, looking very important in his grey blazer, elected to not really do any actual work on this flight.
Sure, he turned up once to sneak a peek at the cabin while we taxied out for departure, but otherwise remained seated, allowing our one remaining crew member to do her absolute best – making it all the way to Row 1 about two minutes before the prepare for landing announcement was made.
Then, as if the Gods had looked fondly upon me, he showed up seat-side and carefully explained (to me, only) what the meal of the day was – a Chee Cheong Fun – before quickly retiring back to his seat in the galley. Quite what I did to afford such a pleasure I will never know, and always be left wondering.
As a result of his delicate explanation, I now know that this particular meal should be a Chinese flat noodle-like dish, which today came presented with two sauces, one sweet and one spicy.
Because a Chee Cheong Fun is not a dish I have encountered before, I wasn’t sure what to expect or what it ‘should’ be like – so instead, I’ll tell you what it was like, which was lukewarm, very bland and most unusual. With the addition of the spicy sauce, it then tasted spicy, lukewarm, and very shortly thereafter…bland.
Within a handful of minutes following receipt of the dish, it was time, no doubt thanks to our ever-elusive cabin manager, to hand it back with barely time to knock back a glass of water (the first and only) before landing.
Overall, the food on this flight was just cheap and unbecoming of a national airlines highest domestic product, while the beverage arrived after the meal. A lot of the service failure aspects however surely have to be ascribed to our cabin manager and his incredible passion and dedicate to passenger interaction-avoidance.
Leave a Reply