#anyway LONG TIME NO SXF I AM THINKING ABOUT THEM ALWAYS

[froggydraws]

🎇

[justsomeoneintoomanyfandoms]

...

Should i make this long or short?

I request for a matchup for bsd(bubgo stary dogs.) and genshin, please.

Name: Rieh.

Pronouns: she/her

Sexuality: i.. Honestly don't know, straight? Lesbian? Bisexual-? Ig bisexual, but more on girls.

Zodiac+mbti: pisces and intj

Appearance:hair: medium brown withstreaks of blonde.

eyes: brown.

height: 4'11

Glasses, yes(they're pink btw)

I usually wear like some bunny headband..? Like the one that stretches but on the neck.. Like a choker..??? I also wear headphones went i go out.

Personality: mood swings, whole..some..?(sometimes), childish(sometimes), rude/blunt(mostly)

Likes+dislikes:likes: candy. Fun stuff. (WHAT DO I LIKEE) uhm.. Myself 😃.

Dislikes: dust, stickiness, dirt.

Hobbies: playing genshin with that one song on repeat(like all day-), playing prosekai, practising chess, playing badminton, doing embroidery while watching sxf(spy x family) and kcc(komi can't communicate), sleeping, like literally. Thinking of scenarios or dramas that i could write or make, listening to music, eavesdropping(shh).

Any extra infromation: (finally the part where i can freely say stuff-) im kinda a self-centered girl who loves (mostly) for drama and twists and the fun in life and is kinda careless who doesn't even know what her sexuality. I want people to think im cute so i can have privilage to like ask my classmate for candy or sum shi, thats why i wear a bunny choker-like thingy around my neck. I am.. Very clumsy, even just covering a marker, i can get myself injured and have my finger bleeding. I sometimes just carry my plush anywhere i go. I pretend im like talking to someone all the time in my head. Also when i say 'music' i dont mean like gmfu, or simon says and shi like that, like i lit meant songs like, tondemo wonderz, or theme of niccori, or maybe sweety glitch from prosekai, haha.. I also play those songs like on full volume to make sure everyone around me will be reminded that im the youngest in sophomore year and think I'm cute. I also sometimes think like im in the spotlight, like im in some kind of show, and is the protagonist of the story, is that weird? I sometimes get to impress people with 'magic' and when someone asks me something... I just answer 'magic'. Would knowing my favourite characters in other fandoms work..? My fav character in kny(demon slayer) is Mitsuri and Muichiro, in prosekai probably Emu and Kanade, and like in kcc, in my head, i act like like naruse(how was his name spelt? I dont remember.) my favourite character in kcc is probably najimi and kaede, in oshi no ko probably ruby. ALSO DONT GUESS THAT MY FAVOURITE COLOUR IS PINK WHEN ITS ACTUALLY CERULEAN BLUE-!

Did that 'extra information' help? Anyways thanks for listening, cant wait to see what matchup i got!!

(lit just asked this to you in like midnight.)

Hi Rieh! Thank you for your request! Sorry it took so long. I hope you like your matchups!

In Bungo Stray Dogs, I match you with...

You and Akiko are a powerful and, at times, scary couple. Between your mood swings and her…medical inclinations, a lot people are timid when approaching you.

That’s not to say you won’t make friends though. The rest of the Armed Detective Agency love you and think you balance out Akiko’s intense nature well.

I can see Akiko as someone who is surprisingly into wholesome anime like Spy x Family. She thinks it’s sweet and it’s a nice break from her usual day to day. She especially likes Yor though she’s not sure why…

Due to her medical training, she’s a very neat and tidy person so no need to worry about dust, dirt, or stickiness around home. She’s not fond of them either so the house will always be tidy and clean.

Definitely thinks your cute. She can handle a lot so your mood swings won’t affect her a whole lot. She’s got the training to know how to help your mood swings be a bit more manageable so if you want some tips and tricks, she’s more than happy to help.

In Genshin Impact, I match you with...

Oh, Lisa thinks you’re just the cutest! Sure, she calls everyone cute but she thinks you’re especially adorable.

Don’t think you’re going to be able to easily manipulate her though. She’s seen some things in her time and knows what she’s doing. She won’t be mad that you’re trying to manipulate her but she will suggest you redirect and manipulate people into returning their books on time.

Enjoys taking naps with you. Lisa is already a pretty laid-back person but with you around in the library, the chances of Jean finding her asleep among the books with you next to her definitely increases.

Dust is to a certain extent unavoidable in the library but Lisa’s more than willing to join you in tidying the place up a bit. She’s been meaning to for a while, this is just the push she needed.

Please embroider things for her. Her clothes, her hat, her lunch bag. Anything and everything you want to embroider, she won’t way no to. It’s a little reminder of you when she’s away for a while.

[wisehq]

Mission Debrief: Chapter Fifty

...We’ve officially made it to chapter fifty!!!

And it only took us-

*checks notes*

-two whole years...

It’s definitely been a slow burn, that’s for sure. Honestly, that’s kind of my opinion of this arc at the moment. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s been one of the best so far; we’ve gotten a lot of character introspection on Yor, the family as a whole is developing, and we’ve finally gotten to see Thorn Princess in action and in all her glory. I think Endo has done a great job (as always) of making us as the reader care about side characters in a way that few mangaka can claim these days. Olka, Zeb, and Gram are charming enough that I care about their well-being, and the Director is such an undisputed badass that I honestly think he’s my favorite agent/assassin yet.

Still, I can see the plot start to weigh down a bit. It’s interesting because when the chapter first came out, both myself and everyone else I talked to were super excited and had nothing but glowing reviews. After a longer-than-usual amount of time to stew on it though (courtesy of the fic-bug biting me at the worst possible time) I’ve cooled off a bit on it since then. I still think very highly of the plot and the chapter as a whole, it’s just I’m feeling the pacing slow down a lot more this time around. I don’t see this as Endo’s fault, per-say. I acknowledge that it’s more to do with his hectic work schedule and the fact that half of the chapters in this arc have been shorter than usual. This combined with the month-long hiatus have caused somewhat of a stagnation in the reader’s perception, especially when you measure the current arc to the gold-standard of the Inusan (doggy) Crisis, which managed to squeeze a blockbuster movie worth of content in just six or seven chapters. Meanwhile, we’re seven chapters into the boat arc and I can foresee another two, maybe even three chapters before it wraps up, making this arc a bit of a marathon to get through in all honesty.

With all that said though, I’d again like to clarify that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the manga. Endo is busy, yes, but is still pumping out great content. The arc is ending soon, and I expect the upcoming chapters to deliver on both action and Forger family goodness. With the explosion of popularity with SxF and Endo’s previous comments about wanting the story to go on for some time, I know there will be plenty of story to keep us engaged for the foreseeable future- both in terms of content and the usual page count we’ve grown accustomed to over the years.

Anyway, with that out of the way, let’s talk about the chapter.

For about a split second there I thought we were getting a Franky chapter in the middle of all this. As you can probably tell by my long introduction this time around, you can probably guess that I was relieved when that wasn’t the case lol. Still, I love me some Bond panel time. Personally I think Franky is suffering from the Yuri problem of “I don’t wanna be anyone’s uncle,” though he’s clearly more qualified for the job than Yor’s brother is. In the future I would totally love a side chapter with uncle Franky, Anya, and Bond getting into shenanigans around town. Write that down, Endo!

Okay, so the whole bit with Loid in the beginning started off funny. Then I realized he was having this deep introspection with himself, and I suddenly appreciated the moment a whole lot more. I am fully aware that the premise behind it is silly (him freaking out over Anya’s recent behavior) but his feeling and thought process here really gets to me. On the one hand he’s doubling down on being a spy and realizing his flaws while at the same trying to overcome them, though on the other hand you definitely get this sense of him having a serious dad moment of struggling to understand his child. Maybe I just have a soft spot when it comes to dads trying their best and it’s clouding my judgement, but he’s voiced his fears about relating to Anya before- multiple times in fact. Me personally, I really appreciated this scene. It humanizes Loid, even when he’s trying his best to be the opposite.

I have nothing constructive to say other than I count the days until an anime comes out, if only so I can hear Anya singing all of her made-up songs. They bless my crops and give me life.

This whole montage of them going about the ship is probably where it felt slow for me. Loid going around trying to understand Anya as the latter tries to ditch him is funny, of course, but it literally ends up being almost half of an already very short chapter. I love father-daughter time, and I would very much like a full chapter of just the Forgers going around doing things (like chapter three, only now with them being much closer and actually enjoying their time together). Given where we are with the arc though, I honestly wouldn’t have minded if Endo skipped another week and combined this chapter with the next one. Obviously I have no idea what he was planned coming up and thus don’t fully comprehend how that would impact pacing and the structure of the plot, but I just got the feeling that we got a lot of filler this week. Not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just- like I said earlier- the pace is already plodding as it is.

Okay so literally as I was putting this together, I got confused for a second because I thought the top and bottom panels were the same thing (insert office meme about finding the difference between two photos here). This actually kind of helps me to conceptualize why I’m not as hot on the chapter as I was when first reading it. I feel like I’ve read this already.

The bottom panel is utterly hilarious- almost entirely because of Anya, and by extension Loid’s reaction to her borderline constipated face. It’s great, it’s meme-worthy, love it.

The top panel is good, but it’s too much like the bottom panel. That in itself isn’t some great sin or anything, honestly I didn’t even catch it till just now, but it does stress the issue of our characters being on a boat in the first place. Endo has done a pretty good job of making sure there are fun places for Loid and Anya to frequent while there and it gives at least somewhat of an impression that it’s not the same scenery all the time...but we don’t really see that. The reader’s focus for most of this arc has been either

a) Devoted to Olka’s party, and they’ve spent most of their time either in hiding or running down halls or

b) Loid and Anya, who are in various places- but it inevitably goes back to them eating, or in a quick montage, or also walking down hallways

There’s only so much you can do on a boat before it starts to feel monotonous, which is doubly true for the characters. In the past five chapters we’ve seen the characters eat four times, and three of those times were Loid and Anya. Honestly it’s kind of funny to me because I have family who frequently went on cruises (before the world went to shit) and they’d joke that after a while the only thing you do after a while is just eat since there’s nothing else to do. Maybe we’re at that point in the boat arc as well.

Okay, I’ve spent a lot of time razzing on the chapter- which is something I really don’t take any pleasure in. So let’s just stop and appreciate Loid’s reaction to Anya’s adorable admission at the top of the post. I am living for this dumbass slowly start to whittle away in the face of his wife and daughter. I love his expression, because it’s not a Twilight one. It’s not really something he can mimic as a spy; that genuine softness that can really only come from being both relieved and happy that you’ve figured out your daughter, if only briefly, and can sympathize with her need to see your other half. Forger family softness. My shameless cocaine.

Andddd we end it all with the promise of fireworks, a rendezvous, and all the assassins coming out in one last ditch effort to kill Olka and Gram. I could talk more in detail about all this, but it’s all rather self-explanatory. We’re coming on the end of the arc. Shit’s getting intense, and I am very excited to see how everything unfolds in the coming chapters. We’ll get to find out whether or not some of our theories from the beginning of the arc will come to fruition or not (the out-of-order emergency exit, for example) and also if everyone we know and love is coming out of this alive (got a lot of questionable fingers pointing to you, Zeb...)

I was critical of this chapter, but I’m a critic and it’s what I do. All in all, I am still very pleased with this story and I look forward to each and every update as they come. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the state of things as well. Do you agree with some of what I’ve said, or do you have your own opinions about the story and characters? Let it be known that I read any/all replies- I just have to make more of an effort to get back to you is all lol

Also, BONUS!~

GOOF PUTTING

[monasatlantis]

Himi Adventskalender Last-Minute-Short-Story...

I am sorry. It is a short SxF thingy again. I have a lot of trouble thinking of what to do with the Prompts. Nothing turns out the way it should be. This one is total bullshit because the characters crushed my actual idea and now it sounds even more halfhearted then it would have been otherwise. I am really unhappy with me writing, which is why I wanted to stop doing it. But I more or less promised it and I don’t feel good with not even trying. Its just so hard lately. I can not come up with anything. I might decide to try to write without the Prompts, but I am not sure if that will make it better. What I really need is a muse. However... here is my entry for what actually should have been “Unholy Christmas” and let me tell you, there was suppose to be at least GxG too in this story, but we’ve seen last time what happened when I try to force myself to continue writing. So I decided to stop right after SxF. Anyway... here is what was suppose to be a story about unholy christmas with the so not unholy sounding title: “How about a smile?”

Siberu was pouting. And growling. And really, really willing to make it clear that he was absolutely and definitely unhappy, while he was laying on the bed, hands behind his head and angrily looking at a seemingly random place in the room.

 When Firey came out of the bathroom, only dressed in a huge red towel that was wrapped around her body, he was still pouting. And when he saw her, he couldn’t help but start to complain. “I hate that!”, he started, while sitting up. “Its Christmas and we couldn’t even celebrate it. We didn’t even have time to get a damn tree because of all the fighting.”

 “Usually…”, she began, while folding her arms infront of her chest, “you are complaining that you are bored if there is no fighting going on. I can still hear your words from two weeks ago, that you are soooo awfully bored, because there is no fighting, your beloved Green-chan is so awfully busy and your stupid brother – your words, not mine – always just wants you to learn stuff about this world and our rules. You were almost overjoyed when we had to go back to the battlefield and now you are complaining? Make up your mind, Bakayama.”

 His pout grew even bigger at the use of his old nickname. “That is different. I mean, yes, I really like being on a battlefield and having something to do. But… its not like I want to do this almost all day and all night long for two weeks and on top of that missing the opportunity to actually celebrate Christmas. I mean, come on Firey. Christmas. That’s the day we first meet. Especially we should celebrate it.”

 “You are just angry because you missed your chance for steeling a kiss from Green under the mistletoe this year.”

 “And you are just jealous that I still do that every year”, he grinned in response.

 “You just do that to piss of your brother, so why should I care?”

 “I don’t want to piss him off, I want him to lose his pokerfaced for once and I am doing it for Green, you know that.”

 “Do you want to convince me or yourself?”

 He lets himself fall back into the pillow. “Why are you like that? I am sad about the fact that we couldn’t celebrate Christmas and you don’t even try to cheer me up.”

 “You talk about kissing Green and then what me to cheer you up?”

 “I knew you were jealous”, he grinned once more and she decided to just ignore him and turned towards her closet to find herself something comfortable to wear.

 It was silent for a while and then he started to complain again: “I wish we could at least have exchanged gifts. That’s the best part of Christmas after all.” “What would you have given me then?”, Firey asked, while looking a little bit unhappy into her closet.

 He thought about her question for a moment, his answer was not what she had expected. “I would have gone to London with you. We haven’t been there in a while and technically, this is were we started our relationship… so even more reason to visit that place around Christmas. Plus, I know you like it there.” She gave in to the urge to close her eyes and imagine that for a moment. Just the two of them. Walking though the streets of London, holding hands, Sibi teasing her every now and then… remembering old times… “I would have liked that”, she said then and turned around to look at him: “What would have you wanted in return?”

 He surprised her once more, looking dead serious when he sat up again and answered “How about a smile? I haven’t seen you smile ever since that incident last month. I miss your smile.”

 She tried but failed to give him a true smile and saw how his expression saddened. “I am sorry. Anything else that I can give you for the time being?”

 “What would you be willing to give me?”

 After a moment of seriously thinking about it, she grinned at him and let her towel fall down to the ground. The surprise in his eyes lasted for a few lousy seconds before a smug grin came to his face. “I guess that will do for now.” He got up and pressed her now naked body against his, leaning his forehead against hers, his eyes full of love for her, desire hardly visible under it. “Maybe I find a way to make you smile while we are at it”, he whispered before he have her a kiss full of love that only slowly turned into a kiss full of passion…

[3monthsineurope]

September 16, 2019

We woke up at 5:45 in Copenhagen on Monday. Ugh so early! We changed and got our bags together as quietly as possible. We left the hostel just after 6. We walked back to the station we used the other day, then took the metro to the airport. Halfway through the ride, I realized I had only been given one ticket! Ugh! I was worried because there was a metro worker on our train, and what if he checked our ticket? But I had been charge for two tickets. Anyways, we got to the airport right at 6:40, two hours before our flight.

We were already checked in with EasyJet, so we just dropped our bag off. EasyJet is a super budget airline, so we were only allowed one bag to bring in the cabin with us, including a purse. We went through security and had issues with our liquids again. They really want them in one tiny zip lock bag! Thankfully, Ingvar doesn’t have much, so I got all my stuff through. We hadn’t eaten breakfast, so we decided to check out a lounge, with my credit card pass.

We wandered the airport and found the lounge, and thankfully got in. We both had breakfast and juice, all for free, which is always nice. I had some bread with jams and some meat and cheese. This lounge was pretty nice, it even had a Carlsberg beer tap you could pour yourself! Don’t worry, we weren’t drinking beer at 7 am haha. I put on a little make up, then we made the trek across our terminal to our gate. The flight looked packed! There were tons of students, that looked like they were in high school. Ingvar and I sat together, and I had the window this time, heehee. We both snoozed for a bit, maybe a half hour, then I wrote. The flight was under an hour, and then we were landing in Berlin!

Once we landed (I forgot to mention, they never checked our passports, since Denmark and Germany are in the Schengen Zone, which means free travel. Ingvar was shocked by this!), we grabbed our backpacks and got our roller bag from baggage claim. We were visiting Berlin to meet up with Ingvar’s best friend from college, Nico! He wasn’t at the airport yet, so I pulled out some money from the ATM. Ingvar and I were putting all our purchases on my card/using my cash, and just splitting the cost at the end, so it doesn’t get confusing. We hung around, while Nico came to us. He doesn’t live in Berlin, so his cousin accidentally sent him to the area of the airport, not the actual airport. We waited a while, about an hour, before Nico made the connection that he was at the wrong airport! When Ingvar had given him our flight details, he mentioned we were flying into SXF. Nico didn’t really realize this, because no one ever flies into this airport! So, he was at the Tegel airport instead! Ahhh, what a mess. Ingvar was a little disappointed, and I was a little frustrated, but Nico sent us a metro/train itinerary, so we left the airport.

We took two trains and got off at the stop Nico needed us, where his cousin lives in Berlin. We were dropping off our bags before heading out for the day. As we were coming up the escalator, Nico saw me first, and then Ingvar. This was my first time meeting him, since he hadn’t visited Ingvar since 2015. It was so good for Ingvar to see him! He apologized a lot for the misunderstanding, and then we walked about ten minutes to his cousin’s place. We dropped off our bags and Nico charged up his phone for a bit, then we hit the town!

I had signed up for a free walking tour, so we headed towards the meeting point for that, Brandonburg Gate. We were pretty hungry, so we got a famous Berlin food: currywurst. It’s a sausage with a ketchup/curry sauce with fries. Ingvar and I both got one, and Ingvar got a beer, too. Ingvar and Nico got to catch up for a bit, then it was time for our tour. I don’t know if you remember this, but I was in Berlin in 2014 and loved it! The walking tour was with an Englishman named Mark. It was an historical tour, around the center of Berlin. Nico and Ingvar kind of hung out in the back, and chatted, while I listened more to the tour. Mark gave a really good tour! He talked about WWI, WWII, the Holocaust, and the Cold War. We saw the Brandonburg Gate, of course, which used to decide East and West Berlin, and consequently East and West Germany. We saw the Memorial of the Murdered Jews of Europe, then part of the original Berlin Wall, the area where Hitler’s bunker was (it’s a parking lot now), and the only Nazi building left in the city. We stopped for a break and Ingvar bought me a tiny coffee, which was pretty hilarious.

After the break we saw where the book burning happened from 1933. The Nazi’s burned the books by Jewish authors, homosexuals, doctors, and other “undesirable” people. The tour was really good, I think that Mark did a good job talking about Germany’s ugly past, but also painted a picture of how Berlin and Germany are pretty progressive now. I wanted to see the Reichstag building, which is one of the parliament buildings. It had a really pretty dome, but unfortunately, it was closed that day. The building and grounds are really pretty! We were kind of hungry, so we took a metro to Alexanderplatz area, one of the main squares in the city. We saw the “ugliest building”, the TV tower, and went shopping for Ingvar to get a lederhosen for Oktoberfest! He had to try on a few, but he actually found one! I’m so happy, haha.

We ended up getting some doner for dinner. Doner is the Turkish meat on a stick that’s roasted, then thinly sliced, like for gyros in the states. Germany has a huge population of Turkish people, so doner places are everywhere. Ingvar and I shared one, then we went to the super market to grab some beer for the train ride. It sounds like we’re drinking a lot, but we really aren’t! The beer here is super light, and it’s fun to be able to carry your beer around in public. We took the metro back to Nico’s cousin’s place, then grabbed our bags and headed to the main station of Berlin, Berlin HBF. Nico had bought a three person, unlimited transit pass, so that was really nice! We paid him back of course. At the main station I bought a few souvenirs, which I had already done that day, but somehow lost them! Can you believe that? I must have left the little bag on the metro or something. It wasn’t a lot of money, but still, it sucked that I lost stuff.

We took the train from Berlin to Wolfsburg, a city near the town Nico lives in. We all sat at a little table on the train, which was nice. There was WiFi, which was nice. Ingvar and Nico talked a lot about soccer, while I snoozed a little and wrote. We got to Wolfsburg around 11, the train was about three hours long. We walked a bit to Nico’s car, then he drove us to his home town, Weißes Moor. It was late and I was super tired, so I fell asleep in the car for sure. Nico gave Ingvar a little tour around the area. His town is super small! He doesn’t even had good internet yet. We arrived at his family’s home, which was so nice! Nico slept in his brother’s room, and gave his room to Ingvar and I. I just wanted to go to bed, but Nico’s mom had made us tortellini for dinner/late night. Nico woke his mom up and she came out to talk to us for about a half hour. She was so kind! She didn’t speak much English, so Nico translated for her. We brought her Mike&Ikes and Jif cookies and cream spread, so she was really happy! Nico was super happy about the powdered Gatorade, too! Around 1 am (remember we got up at 6!?), we all went to bed. Ingvar and I got ready for bed and passed out right away. I’m so happy Ingvar got to spend time with his longtime friend! :]

[wishiwasaplanespotter]

‘Only the best stories!’ - importance of fact-checking

Warning: I will try to be as professional as possible. But this irked me so much last night (the one I mentioned in the first post) that I am not really sure how this post will end up sounding to others. Honestly I don’t know which is the civilized way about talking about this.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/storypick/photos/a.638327506212940.1073741827.630422963670061/916720895040265/?type=1&theater

That is the present cover picture of Storypick on Facebook.

So, a really good friend of mine tagged in one of their posts the other day, since she knew what I am studying currently and guessed I might find it amusing or useful to know.

And kids, that is how I came across this post:

Source: Storypick Facebook Post

Sounds wonderful to some and slightly confusing to most right? Especially since I did some background check in the quality levels of airports in India a couple of weeks back in order to make this particular draft, something about this seemed slightly off to me. Hence I decided to dig in (just like some of the commenters of this post)

And I took the plunge and went ahead to read the original post from their website (you can read it here)

As I said before, studying for masters has been some sort of an eye opener for me. One of the modules we had in our first semester was related to research and communication. This along with meetings with my personal tutor laid some foundation for me regarding researching about something and writing an article based on it. In our beloved Indian education system, especially for engineering, I am not really sure the students were given the opportunity or inspiration to think or write originally. Of course, there are exceptions. Or maybe, I was just a bad undergraduate student.

Copying assignments were a common (mal)practice and nobody ever bothered to get rid of it from the system; neither the students nor the professors. I know it is quite harsh a thing to say but it was just an observation I made from studying in India and here. Once I joined here, I have started writing my own coursework, learned about referencing. Another thing they tried to teach us is to question everything we see, not to believe anything without some sort of logical backing if not evidence. They told it is important to evaluate any information that you find on the basis of who wrote it, its credibility, reliability and so on

So when I started reading this article, it didn’t seem logical at first. Midway through the article I knew something was certainly not in place. By the end, I was convinced that it wasn’t credible. Hence I went to do some background check to see to what extend it was true and at what point it fell all over the place. The following things were marked in my mind

- ‘Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport bagged the award for best airport service quality in the world.’ - ‘The airport was selected based on a survey of 5-15 million travellers.’ - ‘We’re impressed with the scale of Heathrow in London, the efficiency of Schoenfeld in Berlin, or the shopping opportunities of the International Airport in Dubai. However, we fail to realise we’ve got many such impressive airports back home.’ - ‘The Hyderabad airport becomes the first Indian airport to bag the award from the Airports Council International (ACI)’

So the next step was to check the authenticity of these claims. I headed over to the website of ACI. I was aware of this council since I had read one of their reports related to aircraft noise a couple of days ago. Still I wasn’t aware they had a rating program for service quality of airports (then again, who am I to know everything!?) That was when I found many things that the author forgot to mention in his storypick article:

Hyderabad indeed is one of the winners of the Airport Service Quality awards 2016 BUT

They became the winner in one particular airport size category: 5-15 million passengers (this explains where the ‘survey of 5-15 million passengers’ possibly originated from)

This 1st place in the category was shared by them with Tianjin Binhai International Airport in China.

HYD isn’t the first Indian airport that got a 1st place. Both MUM and DEL had got first in their category in the previous year and DEL had one in the year before that too, being 2014.

The author has intentionally or unintentionally conditioned the reader to compare this airport with Heathrow, Berlin Schönefeld Airport, Dubai and arguably better than Mumbai and Delhi airport. Is this fair?

In my opinion, all of it seems like comparing apples and oranges. For example, what wasn’t mentioned in this article was that it was just for that category that Hyderabad Airport became a winner. ASQ 2016 had separate awards for Best Airports by zize where airports with similar passenger traffic were assessed, 2-5 million, 5-15 million , 15-25 million , 25-40 million and over 40 million passengers. Then there was another award where all airports with more than 2 million passengers were considered at one go but for a region at a time. In other words, this seems like a category where HYD, DEL and MUM were competing with eachother (DEL and MUM has more than 15 million passengers). And these were the results for the region of Asia Pacific:

1st: Seoul Incheon Airport (ICN) 2nd place (tie) Delhi Airport (DEL); Mumbai Airport (BOM); Singapore Airport (SIN) 3rd (tie) Beijing Airport (PEK); Haikou Airport (HAK)

So that is sorted. Also in the Middle East Region, you can see Dubai’s name coming up too though in a different passenger traffic category. Now what is left to consider for me was the case of LHR and SXF. Both airports were participants according to the ACI website and were no where to be found in any of the lists, so weren’t some of the other busy airports of the world, including Atlanta, Los Angeles, Beijing, CDG Paris, etc. But Heathrow was in the top ten for the World Airport Awards which is a benchmarking done by SKYTRAX.

Now if what ACI claims is true, this is a rough indication of how bigger isn’t always better especially where service quality is to be considered. Of course it is only fair to think twice before comparing two airports. Their contexts can be completely different. We have a couple of airport-related modules this semester and from the very less reading I have done, what I have understood is that there are a lot of factors to be considered when we compare airports. It is a complex environment where the excess of one factor might help one airport very well while it might not be equally useful for another airport. This post is already overbearingly long so forgive me for I am not going to explain this further.

ACI’s awards are good I feel. It encourages the lesser known airports of the world for their quality and gives some recognition that can motivate them to come up and become more reputable to the world. I am not sure how well-integrated the bench-marking programme is into the participating airports’ running or the proper benefits airports receive from this programme. This would require a deeper look into the mechanism.

I also went ahead and read the news article the author has generously provided at the end. It was published in the website of Business Standard, an Indian daily newspaper. It made perfect sense now. The storypick article was a poor sumarization of that news piece, which in my opinion seems factually accurate. It doesn’t compare HYD to other airports and rather acknowledges Hyderabad airport also has the honour to be the first airport in India to have been awarded by ACI, The Director General's Roll of Excellence in Airport Service Quality in 2014 for consistently earning the top five ranking in its category in the ASQ for five years in a row. This must have been the root of ‘ The Hyderabad airport becomes the first Indian airport to bag the award.‘ The newspaper also was clever enough to mention that the story had not been edited by its staff and was auto-generated from a syndicated feed. So they did give an excuse even though there was no need to. Good for them!

So what I wanted to basically say is that, please, when you post something on a website please do a fact-check to ensure that even if it is going to be an article with less than 500 words, it is still free of mistakes, factual, grammatical or spelling (I pretended not to see that it was spelt Schoenfeld. The author must have typed in the way he  pronounced it or it might even have been just a slip of the finger) it takes some time to get your facts right but the credibility of a website might reduce when the quality of the article reduces. Also it ends up with wrong information being shared across media. This particular article was shared 7.6K times! I had a background check of the author and the website. Storypick is similar to websites like scoopwhoop. Just for fun I looked into the traffic statistics provided for these websites by this company called alexa, an Amazon.com company. The results didn’t seem impressive. I know that such results doesn’t give a clear indication but you get the point. And the author seems well educated and has worked as an analyst too. I wonder what led such an article.

Anyway, that is how things are. I know this has been long and intense, but if you didn’t sleep off yet, I shall take that as a compliment. I know brevity isn’t my strongest suit and I haven’t explained everything as deep/accurate as I wanted to. But it would be a sin if I let this go too far. And at the end it is just an irrelevant rambling of a novice!

Next post: potentially about noise abatement, ticket pricing or dissertations!

Cheers!

Aeronov

-------------- References: (Effect of doing coursework) (you can read them if you think my blabbering needs to be washed away with something) ASQ

Business Standard Article

Skytrax 1

Skytrax 2

Alexa