Seoulscapade

The memory of a Qantas flight on my way back to Australia from Korea won’t go away so I thought I’d record it now, late as it is. It was April 29, 2005, when I took the night flight in question from Hong Kong to Perth, arriving early in the morning. The flight name may have been QF68, as it is now called.

I was seated across and back a few seats from a family man, who might have been immigrating. He was Middle Eastern in appearance, perhaps Turkish or Lebanese, I don’t know. His English was not at a native level. He had an aisle seat facing the paneling in the middle of the aircraft. It was the kind of seat I would have liked because of the extra leg room.

For some reason, this guy attracted all the attention of the Qantas flight staff—attention of the wrong kind. Right from the start, they were harassing him. Do this, do that, don’t leave that there. You can’t do this, you can’t do that. He wasn’t really doing much wrong, as far as I could see, no more than anyone else. He just had an exposed kind of seat, I suppose, on the corner.

Now, I’ll leave this passenger for a moment to describe the staff to give an idea of the flight experience for me. Gone are the days when you will see attractive hostesses on a Qantas flight. It’s not the done thing to discriminate anymore, and Australia is big on equality issues, or tries to be. So, the air-hostesses (air-hostpersons?) were all, well, let’s say past their prime. But that didn’t bothered me so much as their manner. They were gruff, showed signs of impatience and called people “Love.” If I closed my eyes, I could have sworn I was in a country pub listening to coarse tones of a old-time barmaid.

As an Australian, I found this brash manner and country-bumpkin informality not just far from the air-hostess ideal, it was also far from being internationally chic. I couldn’t help but feel seriously embarrassed. I wondered what people from other nations on the flight were thinking. It made me sink down further into my seat and hope that others didn’t think I was Australian. In effect, I cringed.

When we got a meal, these women were almost throwing heated foil containers onto our trays. I watched as my meal left the hostesses hands a few inches above my tray. It actually flew. It was something you would see in a comedy movie. “There ya go, Love,” she said.

But back to the poor gentleman on the aisle. Things came to a head with him after we had landed in Perth. There was some confusion about fumigation, the spraying of the inside of the aircraft. I can’t remember the exact details, but I think at first it was going to be done, so we had to remain seated, and then it wasn’t going to be, so we were told we could all leave. Everyone got up and started getting down their baggage. Then, suddenly, it was decided that spraying was going to be done after all, so we all had to sit down again. It was a debacle.

The foreign gentleman, however, was not quick enough in sitting down. I doubt he even knew what was going on, and who could blame him? At that point, a burly hostesses arrived on the scene and started badgered him to sit, hastily and roughly. There might have been some man handling. That was when he finally snapped. He loudly spoke back, saying something like, “Stop your pushing me!” or “Stop treating me like that!”

I was thinking, good on him. But then he become the focus of attention for a steward as well and there was a stand off, with more commands for him to sit down with authoritarian menace. And with that, this guy was transformed into the bad guy, the one holding things up.

I was thinking that if it escalates, I’m going to intervene on that guy’s behalf. But it didn’t progress, and the guy sat down, looking really dejected. I saw him later in the terminal, still looking stressed and angry. I thought about going up and apologizing to him. I didn’t, though, because I thought it might not go well, or he might take things out on me, or it just wasn’t appropriate.

I really wish now that I had done something, not just then in the terminal, but back in the plane when the guy was being picked on. Perhaps that’s why I remember this flight with bitterness, partly because I didn’t act when I should have. No one else did anything, either.

One thing is certain, when I stepped off that flight to set foot again in my own country, I was never more ashamed and embarrassed to be an Australian. So, so ashamed and embarrassed.

I have not flown with Qantas since.