World's Best Airport

Am sitting here watching the shuttle train going back and forth between the main terminal and the satellite terminal. Painted on the side of the train in huge orange lettering are "world's best airport". And I wonder how they get the title. I look out to my right and I see a few planes parked at gates. It's not so busy. I don't see the huge crowds I saw in LA and Chicago and Paris or Hong Kong. The free WiFi in the general areas of the terminal is mostly bad. So what really makes a good airport? What does it take to be the best? It's all about customer satisfaction of course. I was on the plane from Paris and the caucasian guy who chatted with me at the departure gate happened to sit next to me on the plane (I actually exchanged seats with a French husband and wife couple who got split up by the check in staff; crazy isn't it?). Well the guy next to me was in huff. He's been a faithful MAS Enrich customer for like 11 years flying frequently out of KL. And when you are Enrich member you apparently can pick the seat you want. He chooses an aisle seat in the back rows; in the hope that there will be empty seats which he can convert into a bed. Well he did not get his aisle seat; and there was not empty seats. So, he was pretty upset. "Eleven years of faithful Enrich membership. This is what I get. No more!", he said. . Eventually, they moved him to an aisle seat.

Customer satisfaction. What others think of you. That's also what happens with the World Ranking of universities. They ask an international audience what they think of the universities. So that's why universities are spending tons of money networking and linking with international bodies and universities. I was glancing at the recently released ranking and USM moved only about one inch in the rankings. Of course, UM is hyping about their 230 position and huge movement up; and asking for RM200 million to move further up. Well, joy to them. Publish or perish. Everything else doesn't matter.  The VCs are all only interested in rankings. Ban polystyrene on campus? Who cares? (Vivian, my boss says we can assist you if you need to pressure the university to go green).

But the best part of all this ranking is that there is no external or independent audit. Get it?

My flight back to Penang has been delayed; good thing the host of the conference bought me a business class ticket. So, I can enjoy some "free" expresso, have bowl of pseudo-Vietnamese Beefball noodles (my opinion? it's really pseudo) and have wireless broadband.

It was a good outing at the INSPEN campus. I made my final final presentation of the research project they funded. A couple of members of the audience disputed our findings (mainly based on their personal experiences on the ground). That's really good. That's how research should be done. There were 98 students from the property management course at UTM (Johor Baru) in the audience. I must say I was impressed with the turn out. What was more impressive was that as I was leaving my seat and walking to lunch, I was swarmed by about 20 or 30 of the students eager to probe and challenge me with questions. I was a little stunned. But impressed. By their daring to just come up and ask the speaker. And their drive to know.

But I think the best part was meeting an old friend, Abu Bakar from my undergraduate days. Of course I took a while to recognise him, aided by his nametag. Big man now in charge of implementing government housing projects throughout Malaysia. 500 staff under him spread throughout the country. I said I only have one staff and already have a headache. He must be a damn good manager. Also the fact that he showed up for the conference said so too. Ability to delegate. I asked him what's the prospect like at the top? Opportunities are still there; still got quite some time before compulsory retirement. OK, Bakar, see you at the top. Ah, make that, you at the top. Me? I don't know. Heh, heh, I got nowhere to go.