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Unexpected delay, bumpy journey - by Louise Lu

After having decided to spend the Easter holiday in China with my family, I booked flight ticket with Finnair, which should take me to Shanghai , China on the morning of 21 st , March.

As scheduled, I went to Manchester airport on 20 th March on time to take Finnair's flight AY 934 to Helsinki and then transfer on the same afternoon to Shanghai.

However, after all the passengers were aboard, we were told to get off the plane to wait because of some electrical fault with the plane. So we did. At first, we were told to wait for two hours, then another hour. The hope seemed to loom as the staff said we could leave in twenty minutes, which meant we still had chance to catch the connecting flight in Helsinki. More than twenty minutes having passed, what we got was not the boarding announcement but one informing of the refreshments prepared for us, implying we had to keep waiting. A slim chance to get to Helsinki on time.

After we finally arrived in Helsinki , the connecting flight AY 0057 had left. Finnair said we had to take the same flight the next day. Without any other choice we had to accept this arrangement. We Chinese did not have any European visa except the UK 's, so after landing we were required by the Finnish Immigration to give them our passports in order to be permitted to go to the hotel. Although we were upset with this demand, we still obeyed because it was already late, we were cold and hungry, and above all, we didn't know how long it would take to finish all these procedures to let us finally have a rest.

Among us there was one Chinese man protesting against this treatment as to detain Chinese people's passports is not the common practice in all European countries. This gentleman politely protested, but the immigration officers were very rude and they immediately gave back his passport, at the same time telling him that he couldn't leave the small room in the airport that night.

We tried to persuade him to give in, but he refused to do so. He said that he felt good that other people were not influenced by his behaviour. I admired his courage! Although due to our country's economic growth, Chinese people are treated much better in other countries, we still occasionally sense something which makes us feel uncomfortable.

Not clear with the relative Finnish law, I couldn't give this gentleman any substantial help. When leaving, I said to him wholeheartedly 'Take care'.

After visa incident, we were directed to recheck in with Finnair's customer service counter at the airport. I had booked another flight online from Shanghai to my hometown on 21 st . It was obvious that I was unable to catch that one. So I asked for Finnair's help. However, its customer service asked me to go to its ticket office. At the ticket office, I was told to seek for help from its customer service. It was already after 9pm . I was so annoyed finally that I had an argument with Finnair's staff. Thanks to my English, I was able to "force" them to contact the Chinese airline to reschedule my third flight.

There was a Chinese boy who had the same problem as I did. So his problem was solved in the same way. I was a bit happy with helping him as well.

When two of us got to the hotel, it was almost 11pm. It was such a tiring and bumpy journey. When I put my feet on China 's land, I was not half as excited as I had expected. How could I enjoy this trip?

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