I thought they were AIRBORNE!!!

And I thought that "declaring an emergency" seemed like a huge under-reaction!

What passes for headlines these days....

I flew to Thailand on Cathay Pacific, and had to go through Hong Kong. No problem on the route to Hong Kong. Our return to NYC was an entirely different story. The Hong Kong-NYC flight was an absolute nightmare. 15 hours on a plane with people who still seemed to think they were in a bus in the city. No respect for seating (we had to fight with flight attendants because people wanted our outside seats instead of their assigned inner-row seats...didn't care what their tickets said). People fought and yelled, children ran up and down the aisles, windows open at 2:00 am (sun doesn't set when you're flying that high at that route), screaming, throwing trash on the floor. It was without a doubt the worst travel experiences I've ever endured...and this was after a fight, literally a fight, at the gate boarding the plane in Hong Kong. An older woman walked through the security check and apparently didn't show her boarding pass, and they security guards pushed her aside, screaming, yelling, almost pushing her to the ground, demanding her boarding pass. This, long before we were anywhere close to the plane.

I can't imagine living in a place with such a dense population, but this seemed to have been a good illustration of the "rat in a cage" syndrome. People were only looking out for their one inch of personal space. No concern for any other person around them. Oh, and I forgot the mention the actual boarding...they don't do "queues," lines. No concept of a line. When the gate is open, you just run and push people out of your way. At the end of the flight from Hong Kong to NYC, the floor of the plane made looked like Fenway Park after a Yankees Game. Ankle deep trash, diapers, I'm surprised there weren't dead chickens. Seriously...it was the worst flight I've ever experienced, although the flight TO Hong Kong was very pleasant.

Chalk it up to cultural differences.