Stupid Tiger

Ok. I'm on the stupid tiger airways right now in the mid air 35,000 over watever sea at 6.40am Singapore time. I'm travelling to Macau, hk n zhuhai with my parents, my elder sis n her Bf Andrew who last min decided he is coming along n giving his uncle's funeral a miss.

Yesterday, sensing that my luggage seem heavy, I checked online for the baggage allowance for this stupid airline. I was shocked to read comments here and there that Tiger has started charging for each check in luggage. $10 for 15kg luggage and so on. I smsed Yan to confirm our baggage allowance. She said allowed 15kg. So I tot ok, supposing she had checked the tickets.

At the check in counter, we were served by an apparent China born guy who conveniently spoke to us in mandarin. N tada! We were not allowed to check in our luggages as we didn't opt for the 'upsize'. For each luggage, we had to pay $25. Wth. So being the typical Teos, we started panicking. Irene, one of the 3 aunts of mine together in this trip decided that some of our luggage are small enough to be hand carried instead. So fine. The few of them checked in and it was our turn. I realized, shite, if I hand carry on my luggage it's gonna mean I have to discard n surrender all my perfume, facial wash, hair styling wax n all. So I decided to check it in anyway. So, Irene wanted to tombang my luggage for some of her expensive facial care products. But, the padlock dad kindly lent her got the number combination screwed up. So panick again. Fjnaly got it solved n then the China guy was serving others in the line already. Then Yan realized she had an orange label that seemed impt, butbif it were for claiming our checked in luggage , then why do we only have one? And, some of us didn't have a boarding pass but had green slips of paper.

After much confusing confrontation, Mr China guy re-issued our luggage labels n only upon questioning did he explain that those who had to pay for the check in luggage, will only get their boarding passes after paying at the service counter. Arghhh. How could he just assume we know this procedure!?

At the departure gate, we were 'greeted' by this rude Indian Tiger airways staff checking on our hand-carry luggage. Dad's was close to 8kg when the allowed was 7. So I asked if he and my mum could share the hand carry luggage load, miss indian lady sacarstically pointed to a sign there to say it is strictly not allowed. Wat a stupid policy. She explained that they are trying to keep load effectively. I told her the counter staff okayed my dad's hand carry luggage she said 'the country staff don't know anything' so who are we to listen to? I asked. 'Me. ' she said. Wth. So if it doesn't pass here, we need to go back out n check in our stuff? She reluctantly let us pass, saying 'next time listen to us' i said shaking my head, 'sorry no more next time. No more tiger airways for me. '

Then, dad realized he had hairgel, wax, screw driver, nail clippers, small scissors, etc in his luggage. I gave up trying to solve problems. Just go thru the customs n surrender watever they deemed neccessory I said. Then the announcement for last call came. I told all to hasten up. To make it worse, the customs officer just bloody had to rub it in:'huh Macau ah? Closing already!' he said pointing to the PA system.

At the luggage scan, dad's luggage got opened up and the security Mdm took her time going thru a zip lock bag of mini screwdrivers n co. I told them nvm, just take them if needed. They still dilly dallied. After carefully selecting the items, they needed dad to sign. Argh.

We then hurried towards gate 4 n one lucky thing was that the dumb feline now assigned seats.

And here we are, FINALY back on track. I didn't even have time to call the mindef notification centre to notify my trip. I tried a few times earlier on to notify multiple destinations but the system is shite. So on the plane before it moved, I called again n just declared I was going hongkong.

Things hopefully won't get any worse.


trv on iPhone