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Comment by ChuckFrank | Hacker News Reader

Having studied in China, and worked in construction, all I can say is that this smells, far and wide, like there was some kickback somewhere in this process. I'm guessing on the Chinese soil end of things. From first hand experience, I know it happens on American soil all the time as well, but, from what little I saw in 1999 the Chinese culture of kickback in China takes it to a whole new level.

Also, can somebody explain to me those flight prices? Spending over 10K on flights to Shanghai within a single month seems outrageous.

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It's a single roundtrip in business class. And if you're flying to Shanghai and back once a month for several years on end, like he clearly did in 2010-2011, doing it all in economy is pretty brutal.

Also, the $10k is an outlier, and might well be two trips in a single month. The vast majority of his fares were under $5k, and there are some visits under $2k.

The plane tickets and accommodations are just populist fodder. It sounds like an asskicker of a project and some luxury isn't that bad. The screwed up welds and cracks scare the hell out of me though, that's the real story.

I just searched on Delta.com. If you book a week ahead, the price for a round trip ticket in First/business class ranges from $6,000 to $11,000, so spending 10k in a month is "normal".

Why would you need to book a week ahead? And why would you go first/business class?

It's a huge project, there's got to be scheduled client side meetings, and those should be scheduled months in advance.

Yeah the article states that coach would have cost $1,500 instead.

The answer to this question: "And why would you go first/business class?"

Is this statement: "It's a huge project"

Apart from getting far enough along in your career to be handling huge projects and therefore probably entitled to some cream, it also just doesn't make sense from a business point of view - save a few thousand on a flight, but the extra fatigue makes good decision-making harder.

Put another way: who should be using business class, if the decision-makers of a huge project shouldn't be?

Agree on this one. I imagine they factored the prices of business class flights into their bid on the project. People that are higher up in any industry want a few perks. I can't imagine telling someone that's at the top in the industry you'll need to send them on 64 flights to Shanghai, in economy class. That's basically a form of torture, so you need to put them up in business class and a decent hotel, otherwise they'll be walking out the door.

I would completely agree with all of this if the guy running the project was competent. If he was a licensed PE and he got the bridge built correctly, shit give him double for the travel expenses. But he was a lawyer bossing engineers around and making decisions far outside his realm of expertise. As such the criticism stands.

>>it also just doesn't make sense from a business point of view - save a few thousand on a flight, but the extra fatigue makes good decision-making harder.

I can vouch for this. It makes good decision making almost impossible. I've made a ton of trans-Pacific trips and jetlag has a much bigger effect on you when you've not been able to sleep or slept poorly on the plane. Business class really does help to reduce the jetlag.

For me, it would come down to this:

If you're making me fly roundtrip to China in economy once a month, I quit.

I make that trip once every year or two and I hate hate hate the travel part of it. Being there is good, getting there and back is absolutely awful.

So I would say, either pay for business class, give me a raise large enough to cover paying for it myself, or find somebody else.

If you choose the last option, then you'll either have to get astonishingly lucky to find someone who doesn't mind being crammed into an Economy seat so much (does any such person exist?) or you'll eventually find someone desperate enough to put up with it, and what are the odds that such a person is also good at what they do?

I have done just 90K miles this year to Asia. 57 times just to Tokyo in the last 4 years! There is no way I would even think about doing this in economy. I am not effective at my job for a day after a flight like this in economy. And lets not forget the time away from the family. If you have to be in Asia for a Monday meeting you have to leave Saturday as you lose a day.

You have my sympathy. Even in the better classes that can't be fun after the first few times.

If your time is valuable, avoiding the 1 or 2 days of downtime in economy can be worth it. Economy is just horrible on the 12 hour trip between that crosses the IDT. It's manageable, but if I had to do it very often even my company would start flipping for biz class (call it a humanitarian benefit to those that have to travel often).

Sure, they're scheduled months in advanced, but they're moved, re-scheduled and canceled, days in advance. Also the agenda, and thus who has to be there, changes all the time. The meeting may have been scheduled 6 month in advance, but that doesn't mean that you get to find out that you have to be at that meeting more than a couple of days in advance, if you're lucky,

I'm 6'2" and broad. Spending an hour and a half in an economy seat is pretty unpleasant. 12 hours would be positively inhumane, and I'd need at least a day or two to recover. 12 hours, each way, once a month? Fuck that. I'll quit and work at McDonald's first.

Call Delta and tell them you need to send 3-5 people a month from SFO to PVG in business class for the next 3-5 years. You won't pay $6-$11k per ticket.

One return flight in Business or First could easily hit that?

For example, first class round trip from Washington to Beijing is typically about $25,000. Business class is more reasonable, but still high. Economy is already $1,200 or more.

If there were kickbacks given to California public officials they will end up in jail. I'm sure their finances are under considerable scrutiny.

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