The weekend in Macau was great, but we had some bad luck with the flights. Both the flight to Macau and the flight back were delayed. Especially the flight last night was not a lot of fun. We were supposed to fly at 6:10 PM, but only boarded around 7. Fifteen minutes later the pilot announced that he had some ‘bad news’. We had missed our slot and air traffic control would not let us depart until 10:20 PM… Most people on board did not really react, which I found strange. But then I realized the announcement had been made in English. A few minutes later a stewardess translated it into Mandarin, and suddenly all hell broke lose in the plane. People let out their frustration at the staff, but they could not help it either of course. We had to stay on board, and that certainly did not help to cool tempers! Luckily I had an emergency exit seat, so that made things a little better for me.
After dinner was served people started revolting and around 8:30 PM the captain let us all out of the plane again. We were not the only plane that was delayed, and also in the departure hall people from other flights were loudly discussing with airline personnel. A fight almost broke out between a very angry passenger and the ground staff of Air Macau, and I was surprised that airport security did not intervene (they just looked on, like most other passengers).
Our flight finally departed around 10:30 PM. The captain explained that only one flight per 15 minutes is allowed to cross the border from Hong Kong into mainland China (which was our flight path), so once we missed our slot we had to wait for the next available one (and we had 12 planes that were ahead of us). Around 12:30 AM we arrived in Shanghai Pudong, and by 2 AM we were finally home.