Shanghai Hongqiao airport – waiting in line for a taxi
Originally uploaded by Marc van der Chijs.

Yesterday I flew back from Beijing to Shanghai. As usual the flight was delayed, this seems to be standard when flying this stretch. We had to wait for one hour on the runway before we were allowed to take off, due to ‘traffic control’. What this means was not mentioned, I suppose too many planes were on this route.

Another thing which has become standard is the long line for taxi’s at Hongqiao airport. The picture shows how long it was. For people who don’t know Hongqiao, behind the taxi starts the normal waiting line (3*50 meters of queing between low iron fences). I had to wait for about 45 minutes this time, which gave me enough time to wonder why the management of the airport does not come up with a solution for this. It is so simple, even Beijing airport has implemented it already: put the taxi’s not behind each other,but next to each other, and things move much quicker. Now the slowest boarding passenger holds up all other taxi’s as well.