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SOHO CEO Now Apologizes for Striking Shenzhen Airport Staffer

Posted: 06/16/2014 11:53 am

After having categorically denied that he hit a Shenzhen Airlines worker last week, SOHO CEO Pan Shiyi has now apologized for getting physical with the staffer. Pan said he was sorry the woman was hurt but that it was not his fault.

“I accidentally bumped the girl and I immediately apologized,” Pan said.

READ: SOHO CEO Pan Shiyi Denies Striking Airline Attendant as
Photos Go Viral [VIDEO]

Photos and a video emerged last week that showed Pan standing beside a check-in desk in conversation with a Shenzhen Airlines worker.The airline worker can be seen in the video cradling her mouth after they both tried to gain possession of an object. Pan’s sudden movement apparently resulted in him accidentally striking the woman.

Pan had been redirected to Shenzhen Airport after the engine malfunctioned on his plane to Beijing. Despite changing tickets for another flight to the capital, Pan was not allowed to board because his ticket had not been authorized at a security checkpoint.

Pan admitted many details of the story last week, including that he was delayed at Shenzhen Airport and was denied boarding, but he categorically denied having struck the woman, calling the accusation a “sheer rumor”.

After the incident, Shenzhen Airlines issued a statement denying any physical altercation occurred between Pan and the airline worker.

Online rumors have surrounded Pan before. In 2012, allegations surfaced that Pan had fathered a seven year-old love child with a former mistress.

Photo: Nanfang

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Shenzhen’s New Metro Line 11 To Be Longer Than First Planned

Posted: 06/11/2014 4:33 pm

subway workersThe Shenzhen City Railway Office announced that the future Shenzhen Metro Line 11 will be even longer than first planned, reports Southern Metropolis Report.

Line 11 will now be extended eastwards along Shenzhen South Boulevard to the Shanghai Hotel region. Upon completion, another public assessment will be made. If deemed suitable, Line 11 will then be extended further over to Luohu District.

Line 11 was originally planned as an express line from downtown Shenzhen to Airport Xinhang Station within a span of 40 minutes. It currently has a planned route 51 km long, consisting of 17 stations, and will reach an operating speed of 100 km/h.

RELATED: Shenzhen, Dongguan, Huizhou to Share Extended Subway Network 

The City of Guangzhou recently announced the construction of a new subway line that will connect Guangzhou South Railway Station with the Guangzhou Airport and allow commuters to cover that distance in 35 minutes.

These maps are now out of date, but they provide some scope of what the Shenzhen Metro may look like in the future. Here’s Line 11:

shenzhen line 11

And here’s an old map from 2012 that shows us what Lines 7, 9 and 11 will look like in 2016:

shenzhen metro line future map

Related:

Photo: Baidu, whtsgc, Shenzhen Daily

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Delays cause air rage inside Shenzhen airport as killer storm rages outside

Posted: 04/1/2014 1:15 pm

The recent disastrous weather has many airlines thinking of safety as dozens of flights were cancelled or delayed at Bao’an International Airport in Shenzhen, but passengers were thinking of something else: compensation.

Irate passengers clashed with airport personnel as equipment was smashed, reported NFDaily. Male passengers were photographed standing upon service counters as they demanded the airlines compensate them for having been inconvenienced, after which police were eventually called in.

Readers may remember airports as being the traditional place to properly express a public meltdown when not granted the entitlement of being able to put their bum on a seat in a vehicle that flies. We’ve seen vicious attacks upon airport personnel, a rant from a woman who threatened to shut down the internet, and most famous of all, the viral video of former CPPCC committee member Yan Linkun who destroyed a check-in counter after he missed his own flight. Twice.

Air travel in China is often fraught with sudden delays without explanations, further enraging consumers to bouts of “air rage”. But all the same, perhaps it would have been easiest for all involved if the airport didn’t cancel or delay any flights.

That is, according to the NFDaily report, if flights were able to take off despite local flooding that inundated the interior of the new Bao’an Airport (as well as having leaked in), and then be able to fly through the heaviest locally-recorded March precipitation in over 30 years that included hailstones in what has been declared a code red weather alert for all of Shenzhen. And then, after that, be able to fly in a storm that has seen 9119 recorded lightning strikes since the evening of March 30.

Airlines: can’t you get your act together and schedule our flights in a time not during a deadly storm? These prices are high enough as they are.

Standing on a table usually has some connotations associated with it (”Oh Captain, my Captain” aside), so here is some hot “standing-on-counter” action for ya:

airport riot guangdong shenzhen rain flood air rage

Photo: NFDaily.com

 

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Shenzhen’s brand new airport already leaking

Posted: 12/18/2013 10:00 am

Shenzhen’s new airport terminal, which grabbed headlines with its futuristic design, suffered water leaks yesterday just weeks after opening due to recent heavy rains. Buckets had to be placed on the floor to prevent flooding, South China Morning Post reports.

The paper has more:

Unhappy travellers took to China’s social media platform to complain on Sunday night, blaming the thousands of hexagonal skylight windows on the ceiling of the departure lounge. They said they not only brought in sunshine, but also the rain.

“What is this ‘honeycomb’ for? Thank God it’s not the typhoon season. Hours of raining have already created quite a few leaks,” a passenger from Shenzhen posted on Monday morning.

Not so state of the art after all, image courtesy of Sina Weibo

Studio Fuksas, the Italian company that designed it, that there had been leaking problems during the testing process, but they had been solved.

Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po reported that leaking also happened in the parking lot and bus terminals. The leaking and poor working environment have even caused strikes at the air cargo department which have been causing delays since Sunday night.

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Check out these photos of Shenzhen’s futuristic new airport terminal

Posted: 11/1/2013 11:00 am

The new terminal C at Shenzhen Bao’an Airport will open on November 28. Shenzhen Daily says 83,000 passengers are expected on the first day.

The airport will close at 10 p.m. on November 27 as final preparations are made for the opening of the new terminal which will be more than twice the size of terminals A and B combined.

Metro Line 11, the future airport express line, couldn’t be finished in time for the opening of the new terminal.

Metro riders who take the Luobao Line to the airport will need to take free shuttle buses to the terminal’s General Transportation Center after they get off the Metro at Airport East Station. The shuttle trip takes about 30 minutes, airport authorities said.

The new terminal’s Wi-Fi system will be able to handle simultaneous use by up to 3,000 people.

Here are some images of the new terminal, courtesy of Gizmodo:

The interior of the terminal, which was designed by Italian company Fuksas

The gateway is designed to look like a manta ray and stretches for almost 1.5 km.

Natural light pierces through the honeycomb design on the roof

The supporting columns of the interior are designed to give the place the feel of a cathedral

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Plane catches on fire at Shenzhen Airport, 12 injured

Posted: 08/26/2013 7:00 am

Shenzhen Airlines flight ZH9969 which was destined for Beijing caught fire at Shenzhen Airport yesterday during the launch of the auxiliary power units. Twelve passengers received minor injuries while evacuating, Guangzhou Daily reported on its microblog last night.

Image courtesy of Sina Weibo

The accident took place at 18:10 and engineers pledged to work into the night to identify the cause.

The injured were taken to hospital and the other passengers were put on alternative flights.

The nation’s airports are a constant source of drama, mainly due to delayed flights, but the safety record is better than many other countries at a similar stage of development.

The last major air crash in the country took place in August 2010 when a China Eastern flight overshot the runway at Yichun Airport in Heilongjiang Province. Forty-three were killed, ending a five-year record of safe air travel in the country.

Russia, for example, has a much worse record. It saw five separate plane crashes in 2011 alone, leading to 112 fatalities, according to planecrashinfo.com. Journalist, aviator and China watcher James Fallows used this to argue his case that infrastructure spending should be sexy.

Shenzhen Airlines, despite being at the centre of a scandal in 2010 when it emerged that many of its pilots had forged their qualifications, has never been involved in a fatal crash.

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Shenzhen airport gets set to open massive new terminal

Posted: 08/19/2013 10:00 am

Shenzhen International Airport carried out a “relocation drill” Friday in preparation for the opening of its new Terminal C on November 14, the biggest upgrade to the airport since its opening 22 years ago.

The new terminal will be nearly triple the size of current terminals A and B combined, and will have double the number of counters. Fifty-eight new boarding gates will also be included, covering a total area of 450,000 square metres. By comparison, Heathrow’s main Terminal 5 building covers just 300,000 square metres.

“The new three-level Terminal C was designed by Italian-based firm Fuksas Architects, and incorporates a patterned double skin canopy of steel and glass that allows patterned light into the building, reduces energy consumption by shielding the space from excessive solar heat and also allows mechanical systems to be hidden,” Shenzhen Daily said in a report earlier this week.

The Daily added: “The terminal has a large check-in building with a wing-like roof on one side of a cross structure. The grand departure hall resembles a large manta ray enveloping the passengers. The hall will be bright with light diffused through the double skin and contains information desks, a car rental area, and airline check-in counters.”

Forty-five million passengers are expected to pass through the airport each year by 2020, up from just 29 million in 2012.

The new terminal will be welcomed by Shenzhen citizens and travellers who regularly pass through the major international transport hub. China is a country infamous for its flight delays, with only 18.3 percent of flights departing from Beijing Capital International Airport leaving on time in June, according to statistics.

Meanwhile, a report this week showed that air service complaints in Shenzhen are on the rise, with many passengers still filing official complaints over flight delays and cancellations.

Earlier this year, The Nanfang picked up a report on a series of bomb hoaxes that affected Shenzhen airport. This week, the man charged with the false threats, identified as Wang Hongliang, 26, from Inner Mongolia, has been standing trial at Bao’an People’s Court.

Last week, a former Yunnan Province official was sentenced to six months in prison for his public display of anger at an airport February.

Photo credit: e-architect.co.uk

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Jieyang becomes third airport in Guangdong to offer flights to Taiwan

Posted: 07/9/2013 4:38 pm

There are now three airports in Guangdong from which you can fly to Taiwan.

The maiden flight from Taichung to Jieyang Chaoshan Airport took off on July 6, Guangzhou Daily reports. Jieyang follows Guangzhou and Shenzhen in being able to offer flights to Taiwan and the flight takes just 1 hour.

There will be flights from Taichung to Jieyang Chaoshan every 6 days courtesy of Mandarin Airlines. The planes will hold 104 people, single tickets will cost 1500 RMB including taxes and round trip tickets cost 1960 RMB including taxes.

The flight captain, Lin Changhui, said Taichung is located centrally in Taiwan and offers easy access to most of the island’s popular tourist destinations.

Before this route opened, travellers between the two cities would have to change at either Hong Kong or Xiamen.

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Guangzhou, Shenzhen airports affected as 10 bomb hoaxes cause flight chaos

Posted: 05/20/2013 7:00 am

After five Shenzhen-bound flights were grounded due to bomb threats on May 15, the curse of such threats continued to plague the country on May 17 when over ten flights were grounded, including ones from Guangzhou and ones destined for Shenzhen Nandu Daily reports.

Courtesy of Southern Metropolis Daily

Unlike previous bomb threats made by phone, the caller did not specify the flight numbers of the planes targeted, which complicated things even further. On the night of the chaos, media reported that a suspect had been arrested, but airport security later said they hadn’t yet found a suspect.

The first such threat came at 3 p.m. when a threat was made on flights going from Guangzhou to Shanghai. Because no specific flight number had been given, one flight had to divert to Fuzhou, and another had to return to Guangzhou Baiyun airport.

The chaos continued and mostly involved flights from Chongqing and Guangzhou to a variety of cities, including Shenzhen. Four airlines were affected.

Planes were searched for bombs, but none were found.

Whoever does get caught is in big trouble. According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China, spreading false terrorist information brings a minimum five year sentence, in accordance with the provisions of section 291 of the Penal Code. If the consequences of this unfunny practical joke prove to be “serious,” then he or she could face a 15 year sentence.

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Shenzhen Airport fined RMB 200,000, ordered to halt expansion project

Posted: 01/11/2013 7:00 am

Shenzhen International Airport has been ordered to halt an expansion project and pay a 200,000 yuan fine after it was discovered that it had not received proper approval, Shenzhen Community reported yesterday.

The expansion included an extension of its future Terminal 3 as well as runway extensions. The airport did not receive proper approval from The Ministry of Environmental Protection and thus received the maximum fine.

It is not clear whether the punishment will affect the projects, according to Shenzhen Daily.

The airport must apply for proper approval before it continues with the extension.

Terminal 3, which started construction in February 2009 and will have a capacity of 30 million passengers a year, is still scheduled to open this year.

Between 2000 and 2010, China added 40 airports, the LA Times reported, but traffic has tended to be concentrated at the major hubs. Aviation authorities reported last year that many smaller airports are losing money.

You can see some “gorgeous” photos of state of the art Chinese airports at Business Insider here.

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