My parents were booked to fly back to the UK today, but when I opened the curtains this morning I knew it was going to be one of those Beijing days which are a smoggy hell (blazing furnaces sound warm and jolly compared to the bleak desolation of a day wrapped in dirty bleached air.)
'I wouldn't want to be on a plane on a day like this,' my six-year old daughter muttered, when she saw the sky outside. We could see the houses on the other side of the street, but the newly-built tower blocks a couple of hundred metres away were simply invisible, swathed in opaque fog, and beyond that the mirrored office building about a mile away might as well have been on the moon for all we could see of it (of course we can hardly see the moon, but that's another story). Later in the day, the pollution was graded at 3B – in Beijing this counts as 'light pollution' – although those with cardiac problems are advised not to undertake any energetic activity, and even those who are symptom-free are warned they may feel less than sprightly.
My parents had bought tickets through Trailfinders with KLM, who having taken their money then fobbed them off on China Southern, 'a partner airline' and refused to have any more to do with them. Queries about seats and delays were batted away merrily by KLM's Beijing office (KLM's answering machine chimes charmingly, 'Thank you for calling Air France'). Having informed my parents that China Southern were the only airline who could possibly answer any queries (although there was a KLM flight number on my parents' tickets) KLM claimed they couldn't even given them China Southern's telephone number….. Well, I ask myself, with partners like that, who needs enemies?
Finally reaching China Southern by top-secret for-our-eyes-only phone number, we were assured that the flight would take off at 2.40. We turned up, to find that no flight had taken off since dawn, and no flight had landed. My parents checked in, and then we went home for lunch and a cup of tea. We rang, and were promised a 3.40 lift-off, so off we set back to the airport only to find that China Southern had omitted to tell us one tiny thing – the plane hadn't even arrived from Guangzhou. We went away….were recalled by an excited Miss Wang to the airport at 5.40 and…. eventually my parents, who hadn't eaten since 1.00, were airborne somewhere around 8 o'clock at night.
IN the evening, I turned on CNN in the evening and discovering that the Olympic Committee had been in Beijing this very day. A sour-faced committee president repeated his warning that if the air quality was bad, they would have to delay endurance activities. A Chinese official tried to reinterpret this as meaning that – and I paraphrase, but only slightly – 'if the wind doesn't blow, we may have to postpone the sailing events.'