Monday morning at 6:30 I left the house for an overnight business trip to visit a factory in Heibei province - a 3-hour plane ride north of Shenzhen and close to Beijing - with my colleague Euan. After the plane, we drove for about 2-1/2 hrs and arrived at the factory around 2:30. Nothing like an 8-hour commute to work!
We were at the factory for several hours, then another 30-minute commute to the hotel and finally relaxing in the room around 9 p.m. It was a very long and exhausting day.
Unfortunately this is the norm for factory visits in China. Plaid works with factories spread out all over the country, which is roughly the same size as the U.S. Their transportation infrastructure is still developing though, with airport hubs spread far apart, limited mass transit options, and terrible traffic on the roads. It often takes a really long time to get where we’re going.
Just last week Matt and I read a news article about a shortage of pilots the airlines face due to future expansion and growth. The article predicts China will need to add 70,000+ new pilot jobs and over 96,000 other airline staff within the next 20 years in order to keep up with the demand and growth of the airline industry. If you’re in the airline industry and looking for work, now might be a good time to consider relocation options in China.
We live in an area with a fairly high percentage of foreigners, and it’s not uncommon to see men dressed in airline uniforms pulling behind them a small black rolling tote and catching a Shenzhen airlines bus to the airport. I recently met a woman from Slovakia with 3 children and a French pilot husband. On the Monday flight, the voice over the intercom from the flight deck had a distinct English accent – definitely not a native of China.
It’s great that the airlines are recruiting a lot of foreigners with experience, but I worry a little about this huge deficit. Will the Chinese airlines sacrifice quality for quantity? If they become desperate for workers, will they start cutting corners on training or flight time requirements for pilots?
It is interesting to me how many small airline options there are here vs. the U.S. Each region, or province (there are 22) seems to have at least one brand of airline specifically associated with it. Shenzhen is the hub for Shenzhen Airlines and most flights we take departing from here are on this airline, but I’ve also flown on Xiamen Air, Shanghai Air, and China Eastern Air (guessing that last one connects several provinces on the east coast of the country).
OK, enough rambling about air travel. I want to mention here that I love my job and I am so thankful to be employed. My heart goes out to the group of Plaid employees that were laid off last Friday. It was devastating news to hear and it makes me so sad. Many were friends with long tenure at the company, and I will miss their smiling faces when I’m in the Atlanta office again.
To anyone reading this – I urge you to run to your local craft store and buy A LOT of Plaid goodies, like Folkart paint, paint brushes, stencils, Mod Podge, cute wood surfaces, and awesome jewelry!!!!!!! You know you need to stock up for entertaining kids at the holidays anyway… and I don’t want to see any more Plaid jobs in the U.S. (or potentially our China office) eliminated! It’s a sad day when people who are smart, talented and good at what they do have to go looking for a new job due to this economic slump the U.S. still faces.
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