- Today I'm flying to China.
I'm flying a new airline.
What a surprise at the gates.
(upbeat holiday music) (bells ringing)
I'm the Secret Santa on board.
There's a very, very nice-looking flight attendant here.
- (laughing) Thank you.
You are so handsome also.
(plane whooshing)
(speaking in foreign language)
(Sam and flight attendant speaking in foreign language)
Your plating is wrong.
This should be in the middle, right?
(speaking in foreign language)
I know this one very well.
- [Flight Attendant] This red wine
is called Chateau Beychevelle.
(speaking in foreign language)
- What a great idea.
Bring the best Chinese tea ceremony on the plane.
This I've never seen on a plane.
There's a library.
Look at the colours.
- Wow!
- Happy, happy holidays from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.
Today I'm flying to China.
I'm flying a new airline called Xiamenair to Xiamen.
I am in the new KLM Crown Lounge,
and look at all these little Dutch houses.
(upbeat holiday music) (bells ringing)
This is such a cool lounge.
There's an outdoor area.
You can check out the planes before you fly.
The lounge has two floors.
On the second, upper floor, there's a pay restaurant
and a pay sky bar with a terrace outside.
On the first floor, everything is free.
You've got the usual buffet, the drinks.
So what's the specialty here?
- The specialty here is me.
- Oh. (both laughing)
What a surprise at the gates.
Very special colour, 787-9, a United Nations
supporting the Sustainable Development Goals.
I'm going to find out all what this is all about
when I get onboard.
(upbeat holiday music) (bells ringing)
Secret Santa coming to Xiamen.
Merry Christmas.
- Merry Christmas. - Merry Christmas.
- I love surprising my passenger.
I'm the Secret Santa onboard.
Let's check their faces out.
Merry Christmas,
Merry Christmas. - Hello.
- [Sam] Merry Christmas.
- Hello, Merry Christmas. - Hello, high five.
Merry Christmas.
Going to China for Christmas?
- Yes, yes, yes. - Yes?
- Christmas, New Year, my son's birthday,
my wife's birthday, and Chinese New Year.
- And you are having a bonus today, which is me.
- Oh, okay, okay. - I am the Chinese
Secret Panda, oh sorry, I'm the Chinese Secret Santa
and the panda as well.
- Congratulations, nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you, have a good flight.
- Merry Christmas.
- I must say I'm probably the world's most terrible
and wonderful Santa.
Here I am, in the business class of Xiamenair, 787,
121 reverse Harringbone all direct air access,
333 economy class.
I'm sure if you watched my YouTube video,
you knew everything all about it.
Lots of advertising on the beams, very colourful.
This has to be one of the most colourful cabins I've seen.
What I like about the other thing is their uniform.
Their uniforms are blue, different kind of blue.
You guys have like three different colours uniform, right?
- Yes. - All blue, but neon blue,
light blue, purple blue, dark blue.
So what positions are you guys?
- Yes, I'm the Cabin Manager, all these flyings.
- You're the Cabin Manager?
- Yes, and this the Personal Business Class, and this is--
- And you're the supervisor?
- Yes, and the Cabin Clerk. - You're the Cabin Clerk.
- Yes. - So guys,
which blue do you guys like the most?
The purple blue, the sky blue, or the neon blue?
(flight attendant speaking in foreign language)
- Hi sir, welcome aboard. - Hi.
- So there's a tabouche and champagne and water
and mimosa for you.
- [Sam] Oh, mimosa.
- Yeah. - Thank you very much.
- My pleasure. - I'm sure you guys knew
I love mimosa, that's why you brought it.
Oh, very pretty like-- - Yeah, thank you.
- The question is, is everyone as pretty as you
on this flight? - Thank you so much.
- I think I've seen some very, very nice-looking
flight attendant here. - Yeah, thank you.
You are so handsome also.
Really, yeah.
(speaking in foreign language)
(Sam and flight attendant speaking in foreign language)
(upbeat instrumental music)
- What's interesting item is this.
Also, Asian passengers like this.
This is a steam eye mask.
So later, during the 10-hour flight,
I'm going to put my eye mask on to make my eyes feel better.
- Bye-bye.
(flight attendants speaking in foreign language)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(speaking in foreign language)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(plane whooshing)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(speaking in foreign language)
(Sam speaking in foreign language)
- [Sam] Your plating is wrong.
This should be in the middle, right?
(flight attendant speaking in foreign language)
(Sam speaking in foreign language)
(speaking in foreign language)
- [Sam] I know this wine very well,
Cloudy Day. - Yeah, so Cloudy Day.
- [Sam] Cloudy Day, sauvignon blanc.
- Yeah, so it produced in 2016.
Yeah, it will call the purist Sauvignon Blanc
all over the world.
This red wine is called Chateau Beychevelle
and it's produced in France, (speaking in foreign language)
in Saint-Julien region.
It produced in 2015.
This red wine is called Holan King,
which was produced in Northwest of China.
It's a Chinese red wine.
- So this Chardonnay Souvenir organic Chinese, 2014 bottle.
Holan King.
(upbeat instrumental music)
(wine trickling) (plane whooshing)
Typically, on the other Chinese airlines,
there's not lots of good wine selection.
They don't pay good attention to wine.
But the sommeliers here,
they do a really good wine selection here.
(speaking in foreign language)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(speaking in foreign language)
What a great idea, bring the best Chinese tea ceremony
on the plane.
This really smells really nice.
Thank you very much.
(speaking in foreign language)
So this is (speaking in foreign language)
is famous for tea.
- Yes, like the representative tea.
- This is a special tea they roast in the oven.
They heat it up in the oven.
The smell is very nice.
(speaking in foreign language)
This I've never seen on a plane.
There's a library in the plane,
and you can take a book, a Chinese book here,
and go back to your seat and read.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Look at the colours, gold, blue, red.
How many, 250?
- Yeah, 250.
- 250 economy class dinner preparation underway.
- Three choices about the dinner.
So this is the Western favourite.
This is the fish.
This is the Chinese favourite, chicken rice.
- [Sam] Oh, this is beef and rice.
- [Flight Attendant] Yeah.
- So because it's Christmastime coming soon,
I brought a whole bag of Christmas decorations,
and I gave it to the crew.
They're going to decorate up all the cart
before they roll it out for serving dinner.
So we're going to lift up the lights,
so let everybody enjoy a Christmas together.
- Wow!
- [Sam] We also got this
Merry Christmas flag. - Christmas flag.
- Great.
So they can feel the festivity of the seasons.
All right guys, go to surprise your passenger.
Go to wow your passengers.
(upbeat holiday music) (bells ringing)
(speaking in foreign language)
- Merry Christmas!
- Merry Christmas! - Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas! - Merry Christmas!
- Merry Christmas! (child speaking)
- (laughing) Very happy.
It makes everybody's day happy, I'm happy.
(upbeat holiday music) (bells ringing)
Good morning.
It's 4:30 China time, 9:30 p.m. Europe time.
It's a tough flight because it's a day flight.
When you're about to arrive in China,
it's just hitting the bedtime in Europe.
So anyway, I slept about three hours.
I was exhausted.
Now I'm just waking up and getting hungry
after about nine hours of flying.
(upbeat holiday music) (bells ringing)
(speaking in foreign language)
- [Sam] Wow.
(both speaking in foreign language)
(upbeat holiday music) (bells ringing)
(plane whooshing)
(flight attendant speaking in foreign language)
Well, we just landed at Xiamen,
and that was a great flight, 10 hours and 30 minutes.
My favourite part of the flight is the inflight tea service.
That was very uniquely Chinese.
And also I'm so glad to learn lots
of Sustainable Development Goals.
I'm so glad to see a Chinese airline taking such initiative.
And I hope you guys have a chance
to fly Xiamen Airlines as well.
I think it's very underrated.
And hope to see you next time, in China maybe.
Merry Christmas, and happy holidays to everybody.
- Bye-bye! - Bye!
(upbeat holiday music)
(logo whooshing)
(logo ringing)
(logo popping)