How many seats do you want? (Taiwan / London)

In 1976, the second year of my two-year stint in Taiwan, Pete the British geologist and I were going on a trip to Kaohsiung, in the south of Taiwan, for the weekend.  We decided to fly as we only had two days, and not even full days at that.  China Airlines, the national carrier, told me they were fully booked.  

I approached Freddie Chen (now deceased), who was our deputy manager at Conoco Taiwan.  He was really the fixer for any bureaucratic requirements related to our oil rig, work boats and men, as all his ex-air force mates had gone to work for various government departments after the Vietnam War (where they’d fought alongside American troops—Taiwan being anti-communist, remember).  I would hear Freddie, whose office was next to mine, addressing them down the telephone line as “Brother Wang, this is Old Chen.  I need a favour.”

Freddie now took out a sheet of paper, asked me, “How many seats do you want?”, wrote something on it, put it into an envelope, and said, “Take this to the China Airlines main office on Nanjing East Road and hand it over at the main desk.”

I went along and did what Freddie said.  The staff member took a look at the envelope and went away.  When she came back, she said, “Which flights do you want there and back, and how many seats do you want?”  So there were not only seats available after all, I even had a choice of the flights both ways!  Freddie had only written to the head of China Airlines, no less, or someone high enough anyway, presumably addressing him as “Brother XX”.

Fast forward to 1986 and London.  A student on the evening programme, Robin, told me after a lesson one night, when I asked what he’d be doing for Christmas, that he was in a right conundrum.  

His (British) wife at the time was working in Hong Kong, and they’d arranged to go on holiday in Thailand, meeting in Bangkok—he flying out from London, she from Hong Kong.  He was then going to fly on to Taiwan, where he was hoping to do some business deals.  So, apart from the fact that this was to be over the Christmas holiday—peak period for travel, this was also quite a bit of a juggling job in itself logistically.  And don’t forget, this was 1986, pre-online-booking days.

For some reason, Robin decided to make his life even more hairy by trying out different options (on the basis of price), which left him in the end with none because he didn’t make a decision soon enough on any one of them.  His then-wife, however, had already booked her flight to Bangkok.

I told Robin my 1976 Kaohsiung weekend story, and said I could try Freddie for him.  The next day, I telexed (yes, that’s how long ago it was!) Freddie, explaining Robin’s dilemma, giving him the dates for Robin’s intended travel into and out of Bangkok and Taipei, and giving him Robin’s telex address as well so that Freddie could liaise with him directly, especially given the tight timing.

The following week when I went for the lesson, I asked Robin, “Well, have you heard from Freddie?”  

Robin’s answer: “Yes.  Freddie’s telex just said, ‘How many seats do you want?’”

So from “fully booked” to “how many seats do you want”, one can see that when airlines tell you they have no seats left, it may not actually be the case.  (Look out for another blog, to come, on this subject.)

(Taiwan 1976; London 1986)