Every now and then I wonder how safe planes actually are? I mean, they do not fall out of the sky often, and departing/landing accidents are also quite uncommon, but I often see small problems on board, that I wonder how many bigger problems passengers do not know about.

Yesterday evening I flew from Amsterdam to Shanghai with KLM and so I had some time to think about this. KLM should be a relatively reliable airline, with planes that are maintained well. But is that really the case? A summary of some minor things that I noticed yesterday. First of all, when I entered the plane it was incredibly warm on board. I was quite late, and people were using newspapers and magazines to fan some cool air in their faces. I asked a flight attendant about it, and she told me that there was a problem with the cooling system in the air conditioning. But they were fixing it. They did indeed, but it took at least another 1o minutes.

When I sat down, I noticed that the plastic inside cover of the window was loose (see picture). Not only at my window, but also on several windows behind me. This has no effect on the plane, but it makes me wonder if KLM does not maintain its planes regularly.

I put my chair back a bit, but when I tried to put it back up again it was stuck. I had to pull it up in order to get it back in the upright position. I know that the seats were old, and that this was probably an older plane, but I still feel this cannot happen. Maybe the cabin staff does not know about it, so they cannot repair it (I also did not tell them actually), but it still should not happen.

Then I noticed that of the two toilets on the upper deck one was locked for usage, because it was not working (note: this was before take-off, while we were still at Amsterdam airport). Why do they not repair this? The other toilet had a problem with the water tap. You had to pull it up otherwise the water would keep running. The crew had actually already put a post-it note on it. But why was it not repaired before take-off? I have the feeling that planes are used too intensively, and there is no time for basic maintenance. Not good.

When the plane was supposed to leave, we taxied to the runway. There we waited a while, and then the captain came on the intercom. There was a problem with the brakes and we had to go back to the gate to get it repaired. I am glad they did that of course, but I do not understand that this can happen. We only taxied for maybe 100 or 200 meters, can they not see that earlier? Or do they not test all their instruments and engines (incl. the brakes) before leaving the gate. I find it all a bit scary, especially in combination with all the other problems that I noticed on the plane.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not afraid to fly at all. I have experienced more dangerous flights, for example when I flew on an old Air Koryo plane (a Russian one, forgot the brand, probably an Antonov or so) from Pyongyang in North-Korea to Beijing. There were not enough seats for all passengers so some had to stand during the flight, and some of the luggage fell down during take-off because the overhead luggage compartments could not be closed. Or when flying a small Merpati plane from Lombok to Bali, when halfway the flight the stewardess ran out of the cockpit and right after that the plane nose-dived for a few seconds. I still don’t know what happened, but I vowed that this would be the last time I would ever fly Merpati.

KLM is probably among the best airlines in the world. But if their planes already have these problems, what issues do smaller, less profitable airlines have? I think I don’t want to know. But I assume that the last thing they try to save on is engine maintenance, so probably flying is never really unsafe. It just feels a bit like that sometimes.

The past week I mainly spent in Amsterdam at the PICNIC07 conference. It was a very interesting week, not only because of all the presentations and discussions that I attended, but also because I finally got to meet a lot of my online ‘friends’ in real life. A few months ago I actively started Twittering, and through Twitter I got to know a lot of people quite well, without ever meeting several of them in real life. Among many others I finally got to meet Erwin Blom, Holland’s most active Twitterer, who immediately interviewed me with his Nokia E61. The interview (in Dutch):Audioreport Picnic07 #21 – Big in China! (Erwin Blom)

Today the Dutch quality newspaper NRC Handelsblad blundered with the date on its front page. It’s only September 29 right now, but according to the NRC it’s one month later already:

The whole week I had planned to work on an investment proposal. To do that I need a couple of hours without any interruption, but it’s almost impossible to work longer than 10-15 minutes in my office without any disturbances. Therefore I decided to do it on Saturday. However, when I woke up yesterday after 10 hours of sleep (a new record I think, I guess I needed it) I was still too tired to really be productive. Work at Spill Group Asia has been busy from the day I set up the company, but it’s getting more busy and stressful lately as the company grows. The recent problems do not really help either. No complaints from my side, I don’t mind to be busy, but I also know that there are limits to what you can do.

In the past I went running almost daily to clear my mind, but since bike riding in Tibet I have a knee injury that does not want to go away. Each time I start running the pain comes back, so I have cut back a lot on sports. But I have now started with something completely new (to me at least): yoga. I always thought that would be nothing for me, but it is a completely different experience from what I expected. I actually thought it was just relaxing and it would not take much effort. But after one hour I am totally exhausted and the next day all my muscles are sore. But I am also very relaxed, and during the class I manage to switch my mind completely off work. I love it!

I have a private teacher, and she was surprised to have a beginner student (people normally start in group classes when they do yoga). For me groups don’t work because of my work schedule. They start at 7 or 7:30 PM, and I often cannot make it on time. If I do it, I want to do it right and not miss half the classes. Also, progress is much faster with a private teacher. The basic postures and breathing techniques are quite important, and getting these right is easier when one person constantly observes and corrects you.

I just started two weeks ago, so these are just my first impressions. Let’s see how I feel about it in a couple of months. I think it would be perfect to combine this with long distance running, after my knee allows me to do that again. Right now it looks like a good way to reduce stress, and get more out of your day – both work wise and in terms of quality time.

In a few hours I am leaving to the airport for a week-long trip to Holland. I will be in Hilversum at Spill Group and in Amsterdam for PICNIC 07. Gary Wang & Yang Lei will also be there on their honeymoon, and Tudou VC Bill Kung will also join us on Friday. It promises to be a busy but interesting week.

I just noted that the weather in Amsterdam is going to deteriorate a lot starting on Monday (rain and only 14 degrees C, brrr…). I am therefore going to repack my suitcase and add some sweaters and a coat. The first time in many, many months that I have to wear one.

A few weeks ago I had lunch with some Indian business partners. During the lunch they told us that upon arrival from Mumbai, they had paid RMB 626 for a 19 minute taxi drive from the Longyang Road Maglev Station to a hotel in the Pudong financial center. They knew the amount was too much, but the driver had used the meter, and the figure was indeed RMB 626.

I asked them for the receipt, that they had luckily kept. It turned out that the driver had added RMB 600 in toll fees to the actual amount of RMB 26. Because the receipt is only in Chinese they could not read that of course, and they had paid up.

One of our people then called the taxi company, to complain about what had happened. We faxed them the receipt (the fax number is still written on the receipt), but they later replied that the taxi driver’s identification number is not correct. This means he probably changed his ID number in the taxi meter software.

I hate it when these things happen, it gives Shanghai a bad name. You read about cheating cabbies in the local paper sometimes, but normally only when there is a crackdown. I assume the reports are just some isolated cases, and this happens much more frequently – especially at Longyang Road station where lots of foreigners arrive and there is no supervision like on the airport. Too bad we could not nab this taxi driver.

So far Typhoon Wipha did not have much impact yet on the weather. It’s now Wednesday lunchtime, and the typhoon has hit the coast at Wenzhou in Zheijiang province earlier this morning. According to the latest forecasts it won’t reach Shanghai until tonight, and the weather today is actually better than yesterday. Although there is a lot more wind, the rain has stopped. I think this will change over the next couple of hours, but for now it actually is quite pleasant outside. I just went for a walk to buy a Starbucks coffee, and I enjoyed the warm wind that was blowing.

Last night I was interviewed by Dutch radio about the typhoon, but at that time I did not have too much news to give them. A few minutes ago I did another live interview, but I still could not give them the ‘exciting’ news of being in the middle of a typhoon. They might do another interview tonight.

Update (Thursday evening): In the end Wipha missed Shanghai, and we just had a lot of wind and rain. Nothing special. But as the Shanghai Daily pointed out today, the evacuations and other typhoon-related measures were still useful: “It was a test for the public services system”.

Outside my window it’s raining hard, the reason is that a typhoon is approaching China’s East coast. Chances are that it will hit Shanghai tomorrow, and the current rainfall is the beginning of the typhoon. Today a total of 200 mm is expected, meaning that likely the city will be flooded (not unusual for Shanghai).

The office management started to warn us yesterday already when typhoon Wipha was still a regular one. Overnight it changed from a normal tropical storm into a severe storm, and Bloomberg now started calling it a super typhoon. It is expected to land as a Category 4 storm, with winds up to 250 km/h, the fiercest one to hit Shanghai in 10 years. This morning the management in our apartment building also started to issue warnings, saying that we had to make sure to keep doors and windows closed, and make sure that nothing was outside on any of the balconies.

At the moment 200,000 people are being evacuated in lower parts of Shanghai, and put into temporary typhoon shelters. I don’t think this happened during the last typhoon that I witnessed in Shanghai. I also wonder whether I should park my car in our parking garage tonight: during the last typhoon that parking garage was flooded, and many cars were totally damaged. I did not live in my current compound yet, but remember it because it was reported on many TV stations due to the fact that the majority of the cars were Mercedes, BMW or Porsche.

I hope the typhoon will change it course over the next hours, but if it doesn’t I plan to Twitter live about it. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/marcvanderchijs