Ordinary Gweilo

It's not big and it's not clever, it's just a Brit in Hong Kong writiing (mainly) about Hong Kong

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  • Changing alliances

    I used to think that airline alliances (and particularly code sharing) were just an evil trick played by the airlines.  After all, who wants to book a flight on Cathay Pacific only to discover that the flight is actually operated by a “partner”.  And when most of the flights on a particular route are operated by one of the global alliances (e.g. Oneworld for Hong Kong to London or Australia), can that really be good for customers? 

    On the other hand, if you are a frequent flyer there are obvious advantages to these alliances.  If you have managed to get Silver on Marco Polo (Cathay’s program) you also get certain privileges with other Oneworld airlines (but no lounge access), and you can earn tier points (needed to get or retain your status in the Marco Polo club).  But, of course, that’s only worth anything if there are other airlines in the same alliance that you might be able to use, which is why all of them try to be global.

    Right now there’s a battle going on to get the ”new” (post-bankruptcy) JAL to sign up for one of the alliances.  JAL is currently in Oneworld, but they are being wooed by Delta, who want to bring them in to SkyTeam (which includes Air France-KLM, Korean Air, China Southern, and, coming soon – try to contain your excitement – Vietnam Airlines).  As the Financial Times points out (Rivals want Japanese airline to come aboard):

    If JAL abandons Oneworld it would leave Oneworld with just one large member in Asia, Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific. This would mean both Star and SkyTeam were stronger in mainland China and Japan, two of the most critical markets in the region. It would also hurt American’s position on lucrative transpacific routes.

    I’m not sure how JAL switching to Sky Team has any impact in mainland China – and Cathay probably benefit more from JAL’s problems than they would lose from a weakened Oneworld.

    Anyway,  there has been talk about BA and American making offers to entice JAL to stay in Oneworld, but these seem not to amount to much (Absurd weasel words and useless figures from ‘oneworld’ about Japan Airlines), and you have to question how much any airline would want to spend on supporting a rival.  American’s other strategy is to hope that regulators would object to Delta and JAL’s share of the US-Japan route – whilst conveniently forgetting Oneworld’s own dominance on other routes.

    One airline that does provide some competition to Oneworld on the London – Hong Kong – Sydney route is Virgin Atlantic, which isn’t a member of any of the big alliances.  Instead it has arrangements with various carriers, notably Singapore Airlines (owner of 49% of Virgin), which even allow you to earn tier points as well as mileage.  And Virgin generally offer more mileage (both for flights and from hotel and other partners), and they set lower tariffs for reward flights (Hong Kong – London in Business Class is 120,000 miles on Cathay/BA, but only 100,000 miles on Virgin).  So it does seem that alliances are not good for the consumer.

    Of course Cathay can get away with having a less than generous frequent flyer program because of their dominant position in Hong Kong – they may face competition on most routes, but no airline (or even alliance) comes anywhere close to offering the number of routes they have in and out of Chek Lap Kok. 

  • East-West? No.

    They print so many stupid letters in the SCMP, but this one is spectacular:

    Combine two MTR rail lines

    There has been much discussion (or rather negative feedback) from East Rail Line passengers after the West Rail Line was extended to Tsim Sha Tsui East while the East Rail Line now terminates at Hung Hom.

    The change of terminus has caused problems for East Rail passengers, as it is now at an inconvenient location. Some people would rather change to the Central Line at Kowloon Tong, which makes that route even more crowded.

    I think the best solution is for the MTR Corporation to merge the East and West lines. They would form an (almost) U-shaped route, from Lo Wu to Tuen Mun. There would not have to be a terminus in Tsim Sha Tsui East or Hung Hom.

    I do not have the technical specifications of the trains, however, I think that modern-day locomotives should be able to run long distances. If the fatigue of the drivers is a concern, then drivers can change in Hung Hom.

    The fact that the East Rail Line used to terminate in Tsim Sha Tsui East station, before the West Rail extension was completed, means that the train design and the platform design allow East Rail trains to go through the Tsim Sha Tsui East station and the rest of the West Rail stations.

    For the same reason, if West Rail trains can terminate in Hung Hom, they should be able to run through the rest of the stations along the East Rail Line.

    Karina Lam, Sha Tin

    Well, why not?  Could it because East Rail trains are longer and run more frequently?  I think it could.  If the MTR ran East Rail trains through to Tuen Mun they would be half-empty.  It would also cost a lot of money because they would need to purchase a lot of extra rolling stock to extend West Rail trains to the same length as East Rail.

    Luckily, the MTR have a different plan.  A more logical plan.  They will link up West Rail with the other ugly duckling (Ma On Shan Line), and extend East Rail across to Hong Kong island.  If there are any journalists left at the SCMP and they have access to the archives they would surely find some stories about this plan, and then they might have thought twice about printing this stupid letter.

  • A big mistake

    Santander 001

    Time magazine has a story about Santander: The Most Boring Bank in the World.  Except that it seems not to be so boring:

    Santander’s only stumble has been steering some of its private-banking clients into Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi machine through its Geneva-based Optimal hedge funds. It moved fast to make good, offering to repay 100% of the sums invested. Santander says 94% of its Madoff victims have accepted, costing the bank $648 billion at current exchange rates. It also returned $235 million to the Madoff estate in a settlement of claw-back claims with U.S. trustee Irving Picard.

    Still, for a bank that can get a bit smug about its meticulousness, the Madoff stain, albeit minor, will be hard to rub out. It’s also one of the reasons why Santander’s private-banking business is in the red. "We were caught in a fraud, but it was still a mistake," concedes chief financial officer Juan Antonio Alvarez.

    $648bn is a really big mistake.  Talking of mistakes, I wonder if possibly the figure should be $648 million.  Just a thought.

  • A moveable feast

    Thursday’s SCMP had a strange story about the possibility of replacing Easter Monday with a new public holiday for Confucius's birthday.  Hard to see that happening – we already have too many of these one day holidays on random days of the week, and Easter is the only Hong Kong holiday that is guaranteed to produce a long weekend (Friday to Monday). 

    You might think that any story on this subject would be accompanied by some background information about the changes that have been made to Hong Kong public holidays in recent years (of which there have been several).  However, all we got was this table:

    New general holidays since 1997:

    General holidays deleted since 1998:

    SAR establishment day: July 1

    National Day: October 1

    Labour Day: May 1

    Buddha's Birthday: the eighth day of the fourth lunar month

    Queen's Birthday: a Saturday in June, plus the following Monday

    Liberation Day: the last Monday in August and the Saturday preceding it

    Sino-Japanese War Victory Day: August 18

    The day following National Day: October 2

    Not very helpful, I feel. 

    The Queen’s Birthday and  Liberation Day holiday were cancelled when Hong Kong ceased to be a British colony, and to replace them we got SAR establishment day, National Day (originally October 1st and 2nd), Labour Day, and that curious “Sino-Japanese War Victory Day” holiday (well, if you can’t celebrate the end of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong at least you can remember another war against the same enemy). 

    Then they had a quick re-think and dropped two of these new holidays, replacing them in 1999 with Buddha’s birthday and (I think) Tuen Ng Festival.

  • After you kill them, they stop moving

    Today’s SCMP has this brilliant observation about dead fish:

    Making specimen is a lengthy process – it took half a year to turn the largest  gar into a suitable specimen.

    SCMP 09JAN10 NS FISH3 EDW_2219.JPGA well-prepared specimen can last 250 years and allow researchers to study its body structures in detail, Chong says. However, movements and behaviour of a fish can be observed only when it is alive.

    Well, yes indeed.  Being dead would rather limit their movements…

    In other SCMP news, readers are apparently being asked to email their columnists to tell them whether they agree with columns that they didn’t actually write:

    SCMP 001

  • Dumb and dumber

    As I seem to be unable to write any posts of my own, I should perhaps direct readers to others who are able to produce some analysis of what is going on in Hong Kong.

    Mr Smog had something to say on the weird court case about Procurement by false pretences:

    In very brief summary the facts of the case seem to be that a young aspiring model was having no luck with her career and so she approached a self-proclaimed Taoist “master” to see if he could help. This “master” persuaded her to engage in rituals which involved him having sex with her on a number of occasions. And this happened multiple times before she apparently started wondering whether she had been duped.

    Mr Ulaca also weighed in with his thoughts:

    …the law under which he was charged and convicted, "Procurement of an unlawful sexual act by false pretences" (Crimes Ordinance, Cap 200, s 120), is worded in such a way that it raises many more questions than it answers. The law states, in essence, that it is an offence for a person to procure "another person, by false pretences or false representations, to do an unlawful sexual act".

    The major, and very serious problem, with this is that "unlawful" is smuggled in rather than defined, which lends a certain circularity to the law. Moreover, the addition of the word "unlawful" strongly implies that there are circumstances in which sexual intercourse under false pretenses is lawful, and yet these circumstances remain, like the "unlawful", undefined.

    Truly a bizarre case.

  • Happy Christmas and links updated

    I have been taken to task by Mr Spike for linking to his old site, and I can't deny that a review of my list of Hong Kong blogs was long overdue.  It also turns out that Mr Hemlock has finally closed down his old site and moved to WordPress, and a few old favourites have stopped alogether.

    Oh, and Happy Christmas.

  • Finally I can stop lying

    How many millions of pieces of paper have been collected at the airport (and Lo Wu and other ports) since the HKSAR government starting requiring travellers to make a health declaration?

    What have they done with them?  What has it achieved?  Why has Hong Kong persisted with this nonsense long after everywhere else gave it up?

    Did they really expect that everyone with a cough or a sore throat would avoid travelling?  Well, from today you can do just that without worrying about the stupid forms. 

  • Rabbit drowns off Wan Chai

    Er, is this news?scmp 001

    Rabbit drowns off Wan Chai

    A rabbit drowned off Wan Chai after falling into the sea while its owner was walking it at a waterfront park. Police said a 15-year-old girl called for help at about 8.45am, saying her pet rabbit had fallen into the sea at the park, in Hung Hing Road. A marine police vessel was called to the scene but was unable to save the rabbit.

  • Liar Liar

    What would happen if we always told the truth?  It’s the theme of that Jim Carrey film that was on TVB on Sunday night, and Ricky Gervais’s The Invention of Lying.

    More specifically, what would happen if we all told the truth on those stupid health declaration forms that we have to fill in?  Yes, I have had contact with someone who had a cough and a fever.  Yes, I do have a bit of a sore throat.  What would they do if everyone told the truth?  They surely don’t have the resources to check whether everyone with a cough or a sore throat is really sick.

    Of course the absurd thing about this is that the symptoms they ask you to lie about aren’t even particularly relevant to H1N1.  Most people with a cough or a sore throat don’t have H1N1, and many people with H1N1 don’t have a fever.  So what does it all achieve?