Parliamentary Secretary from Australia

Back in 2015, I was on secondment to work in the international department of a Ministry to which my organization is subordinate. At the end of September of that year, a delegation of an Australian Ministry was visiting. I was escorting them, and being the interpreter, to Jiangsu for visiting a project. Headed a Parliamentary Secretary, the team was composed of an Assistant Secretary of the Ministry, and another four from research or industrial organizations of Australia.

They were going very smooth in Beijing and quickly we were about to leave for Jiangsu. The project was located close to Yangzhou. Since they had a rather tight schedule, it would be taking up too much time if we travel by high speed train from Beijing to Nanjing and later by car to Yangzhou. Therefore, we decided to go by flight from Beijing to Yangzhou in the previous evening.

The delegation was supposed to be at some event in the day time organized by the Australian embassy, so I went to meet them at the airport in late afternoon. I arrived a bit early. Thanks to the admittance system of Terminal 3 of Beijing airport, I was able to use my passbook on my phone. Since I was only bringing a piece of carry-on baggage, I didn’t even need to go the counters.

Quickly I found the delegation and asked if they would need to check in for the flight first. A colleague from the Australian embassy, who was also travelling with us, happily told me that they have all done that. So we headed off to boarding gate.

The flight was quite full. Seats close to the boarding gate were almost all taken so we had to find some elsewhere. The boarding announcement was quickly made and we stood up for leaving.

There was a long queue of economy class. The colleague from the embassy reminded me that he had premium status of the airline alliance, which allowed him to invite an additional guest to board through the priority lane. I suggested he go with the Parliamentary Secretary first as a courtesy but was told by the Secretary confidently:

– Never mind. I guess our colleagues in business class should be able to bring us through.

It was not until then that I realized on the economy queue were only the four of us, the Parliamentary Secretary, the Assistant Secretary, the colleague from the embassy and me, and the rest four were waving towards us at the priority lane – they confirmed that they could each invite an additional guest since they were traveling in business class.

Happily we all boarded in advance.