I wanted to buy airplane tickets from Langkawi to Singapore but for some reason SilkAir’s website would only sell me tickets traveling the other direction. So, I called up, paid the additional phone-reservation fee, and booked three tickets that way. They were, though, unable to receive payment over the phone. I had to go to the ticket counter, in person, to pay and pick them up.
So, a couple of days ago I visited a nondescript office building downtown (GPS proved useful this time around), traded my ID for a visitor pass and rode a high-speed elevator to the ticket counter on the 25th floor.
Their computer didn’t have a way to look up my reservation, so there was a bit of back-and-forth while we figured out where my seats were. Then the agent advised me to sit down as this would probably take a few minutes. Mercifully they didn’t ask me to provide ID, which would’ve been impossible anyway.
20 minutes and 2 additional ticket agents later, he waved me back to the counter. There I discovered one of the back-up agents manufacturing an official-looking document for me using scissors and glue-stick because, apparently, their printer was broken. There was some more shuffling of papers and at last I was presented with the tickets, and a word of advice that I should arrive at the airport 2 hours before the flight leaves.
“2 hours in advance for a 1 hour flight?”
The agents looked at each other, and nodded sadly. “Yes — at that airport they do everything by hand so things are very slow.”