Mercifully, the second half provided slightly better fare and twice within five minutes of the restart the lively Tom Soares went close for the home side.
The budget airlines allow only 25 minutes between flights to offload one set of passengers and load another, less than half the time of its scheduled full-fare rivals.
That was when the city authorities, in a bid to attract drivers of private cars off the road, slashed the ticket prices on the subway -- by more than half in some cases -- and introduced a flat fare of 2 Yuan (30 U.S. cents) with unlimited transfers.