So let me start at the beginning.
I am travelling back to Australia this week. For some reason I had in my head that I was
leaving on a Wednesday. I had scheduled
breakfasts, lunches and my packing based on this day. On Monday night the airlines started to send
though the usual airline stuff ‘you are due to fly with us’ emails when the
Ethiopian Airlines email came through and said you are due to fly in 23
hours. I’m in my sitting room at 8pm on
a Monday night wondering how I can be travelling in 23 hours when my flight doesn’t
leave until Wednesday. This prompted me
to check my actual e-ticket and low and behold I was flying TOMORROW, Tuesday
and not on the Wednesday. Thank GOODNESS
I checked and that the airlines emailed as I would have been oblivious and
turned up on the Wednesday and I am just not sure what would have happened and
I cringe at the thought as I had 2 separate tickets travelling through 5 cities
and 3 continents, and the nightmare of rebooking and possibly repaying fares
was a little scary.
Anyway, that crisis was diverted and
after moving a few things around and packing on the Monday night I was ready
for my flight the following afternoon.
The flight was scheduled for 7.35pm.
After checking with a few friends and Steve (my driver friend) we
figured a 4pm pickup would give us enough time to get to the airport and to
navigate what can be tempremental Nairobi traffic. I was lucky to have company on the ride to
the airport as Sarah and Matayo joined me to say a final farewell, as they would
be gone from Nairobi by the time I returned back in December. As soon as we hit
Uhuru Highway we knew we were in trouble.
The traffic was at a standstill, which is not unusual, as there are
traffic police that control the 5 roundabouts that run the length of one of the
busiest roads in Kenya. You can sit for
15 minutes without moving, but then when you get the wave from the traffic
police you will generally make it through the roundabout to sit in the next lot
of traffic as the as the traffic police control the ebb and flow of the
traffic. Today’s issue was that there
was NO movement, at all. Traffic gets that
bad that people turn off their car engines and when it moves all the cars start
up again. Well what normally takes 20 minutes to pass the first round about took
us 45 minutes! This was a bad sign. We still had 4 roundabouts to go and now I
had one hour until the official check-in time for the flight. I was in BIG trouble. 40 minutes later we
passed the second roundabout and traffic did not ease up which it normally does
around this point. It was then I started
to check the cost of changing flights and other options should I not make this
flight, I just had a feeling the traffic would not be moving as fast as we
liked.
So between the 3 of us, we decided that
if the traffic did not improve, I would have to think about hailing a boda
boda, which is a motorbike taxi, and duck and weave my way through the traffic
to the airport. So with that said I
would not be able to take my suitcase with me, so I packed what I could fit
into my day backpack, which basically consisted of 4 shirts, 2 skirts and 2
leggins, and Sarah would take my suitcase back with her. So with the plan in place and 6pm slowly
approaching, there was a section of the road that cleared like magic, and with
a whoop and some laughs we figured we had cleared the congestion, and even
though a little late, I would still make my flight. So I repacked all the clothes back into the
suitcase and as quick as the traffic had cleared, we were back at a standstill
again. It was now 6.30pm….. my
international flight was at 7.35pm…… We were only 4km away from the airport,
but it may as well have been 100km with the traffic again not moving. So I had to repack my backpack again, and as
it was now a serious option, and I was wearing a skirt, I put on my pyjama bottoms,
as I didn’t want to go flashing the world any part of my mzungu skin while I
was dodging traffic on the back of a motorbike!
It was a cool look, spotty PJ pants under my striped skirt, but at least
I would not be flashing. It was crunch
time and we saw a boda boda on the side of the road, so we pulled over, with
people beeping behind us, asked the price of the ride and with a quick kiss and
hug with Sarah through the window, I was climbing on the back of a motorbike,
in the now near dark to try and hurtle to the airport. I was given what seemed like a safety helmut
for a factory, not a bike helmut at all, that didn’t do up and we were on our
way.
I am not a motorbike person at the best
of times, so I was hanging onto this poor boda boda rider pretty tight and
there were a few times that I just had to close my eyes as we weaved in and out
of the traffic, sometimes on the dirt beside road, and back to the road again, as
we dodged matatus, busses, cars and other motorbikes….. There was one instant where I squealed when a
matatu pulled out as we were passing and I just had to close my eyes. I hate to imagine just how close we came to
hitting it. We are now on Mombasa Road,
which is the second busiest road in Kenya, and I am riding in the dark, on a
motorbike, trying to make an international flight in what was now 40 minutes
away. I would need a miracle but I was
not going to give up. As I was riding on
the back of the motorbike and we are zipping in and out of traffic, I was
thinking of the consequences of falling off the bike, but I had a flight to
catch and I was doing what had to be done!!!!
There is a car security check that you
have to clear to enter the actual airport and the terminals. Little did I know that the boda boda’s are not
allowed past this point and we pulled over and I was told to get off and
pay. Um, I am still 2km from the
terminals and he said he wasn’t allowed any further and I should just hail a
car or a taxi to get me the rest of the way!
WHAT!!!!! Are you kidding me!? Just hail a random car to take me the last
distance! He told me it would be safe
enough as there was security checking the cars.
Yeah right. Well I was lucky, a
taxi stopped as I was paying the boda boda, just before security and I hurled
myself into the taxi and told him to drive, drive, drive. We were stopped by security that wanted ‘tea’
money as he said the taxi had stopped and held up traffic, of which there was
none behind us, but with me now in a tizz shouting I was late for a flight we
were just waved through. I then had to
bargain the price of the 2km drive to the terminal and after giving 200KSH, I
told him I would not give another dime as he stopped at the terminal.
I finally thought I was here, I have
made it. You have to clear security to
get into the terminal and as I showed my ID and e-ticket I was told that I was
at the wrong terminal! Normally it isn’t
a big deal as the next terminal is only about 600m away, but when time is of
the essence, I ran like a Kenyan marathon runner to get to the right terminal
and I am not sure if it was my laboured breathing, my nerves wracking or my
impatient stomp as I waited for the people in front of me to lay their bags
onto the x-ray machine, but some people let me go before them and I was scanned
without an issue and you can imagine my SURPRISE when I had collected my small
backpack and I saw the line for the check-in of my flight. There would have been over 25 people in front
of me and the flight was due to leave in 20 minutes! I had made it, it was a miracle, I had made
my flight. While I was standing in line
an armed military guy came over and started making chit chat. I find it funny that one of the first
questions a Kenyan man asks me these days is where is my husband or am I
married. He did tell me that I was lucky
that Ethiopian Airlines had an issue with the boarding pass machines and that
was why they were still checking people in, if this had not happened the flight
would have been closed by now. So maybe
my luck was starting to change! I really thought I had made it. So much so that when Steve and Sarah phoned
to check I was ok and had made it, they were now at the airport security and weren’t
going to leave till they had spoken to me.
It was sweet that they waited and as there were so many people in front
of me, I said they had time to come in and drop off my suitcase now. So I had to go the reverse way back through
security, and when I got outside, my military guy came with me, so it was like
I had my own personal security guy, gun and all, as I waited for Sarah and
Steve to do a drive past and drop off my suitcase. So I got to say a better goodbye, but I
needed to get back inside and with a reminder from my personal security that I
should get back I was now back to having my suitcase and proud as punch I had
made my flight.
Well the euphoria didn’t last long as I
had just repacked my suitcase for the third time while I was in the queue,
people left their bags in line and were talking around the check-in desk. Then, the words that I did not expect to
hear, the flight was OVERBOOKED. There
were NO MORE SEATS and we were being off loaded. I just had to smile. After all the effort I went to, to get to the
airport, it wasn’t because I was late, Ethiopian Airlines had
overbooked!!! I was to find out later
that they actually had an aircraft change and they had sent a smaller plane, so
it seemed I was not travelling tonight.
In these instances there is no point
getting mad. There is no point yelling
and screaming at the airport staff, it is not their fault and we just now
needed to work out a plan B. I did
enquire about the 500 buck fee to change my connecting Singapore flight and was
told to just get in touch with Ethiopian Airlines to see if they would compensate
me at a later date, which I think there would be buckley’s but I would
certainly try. In the end there were 13
of us that were offloaded and all of us had connecting flights to other
destinations. So it was now just a
waiting game as the supervisors started to rebook us all. I was now out of airtime, so I asked one of
the trolley people where I could buy some credit and he pointed up past immigration,
which I would not be seeing tonight, so he offered to go up for me and buy the
credit and come back. How nice. So I gave him 1000 bob and hoped he would be
back and not do a runner with my money.
I had nothing to worry about as he came back with my change and the
airtime and I gave him 100 bob for him being so nice and I don’t think he actually
expected a tip, so it was a nice thing we both did for random strangers. I now had
to think about what I was going to do.
If I went home I would be up for a 70 dollar return taxi fare, I had no
food at home, it was now all locked, up so with Eric suggesting I take the free
accommodation, the free transfers and the 3 square meals, I put my name down to
take the offered accommodation. It took
around 2 hours for us all to be counted, booked and getting a minivan to turn
up to take 6 of us who were using the freebie to the hotel that is located in
the city centre.
We actually had a good group and mix of
people and I felt like I was in one of those art-house movies where strangers
meet for the first time over an incident as we all joked and laughed about the
situation. What else could we do? Everyone was in the same boat. Some were in a better position than me, as I
had a separate ticket, so Ethiopian Airlines didn’t want a bar of my connecting
flights, where there were people who were flying them all the way and the
airline had to fix up their whole itineraries.
They were lucky and it is the risk you take in booking separate tickets
rather than all your flights in one booking.
I did it as 2 tickets as it worked out to be 600 dollars cheaper than
booking it in one booking. I figured by
the time I pay the change fee, I wasn’t out of pocket an money as such and as I
looked at it, I really was lucky. It was
my own fault that I was stuck in traffic, it was just lucky that the check-in
had a technical difficulty and I was able to join the queue, rather than turn
up and have check-in closed, be a no show and as mentioned before who knows how
it all would have played out. A whole
new flight was going to cost me 1000 bucks plus the Singapore change fee, a
whole new ticket all the way was going to cost me 1800 bucks, so you see why
500 isn’t so bad…….. even though it was the airlines fault that it was oversold….
I was late…… Airlines do it all the time.
An Ethiopian supervisor came with us to
the hotel and told us that the return transfer would be back at 2pm tomorrow
and she would see us tomorrow night. I
would not want that job for quits.
Customer service, for an airline, at the airport…. Yeah I can see it is
a thankless job. There were a lot of
people initially yelling and screaming about the situation, that is not in
their control-I do feel sorry for them, but in saying that we were all pacified
by the time we left and people just have a knee jerk reaction when things
happen that they didn’t see coming. Dinner
was served at 10.40pm-we were all starving and finally made it back to the room
just before midnight. It felt like I had
travelled all day and I was still to leave the country!
It was now time to rebook my Singapore
Airlines ticket and pay the 580 bucks. I
logged into my booking and the fare still seemed to be the same which I was
grateful for, as I was now changing my booking within 24 hours, I was half
expecting it to now be more, and I selected my new flights for a day later, got
through to the last screen, looked at the balance I had to pay and it said
ZERO!!!! It told me this change was free
of charge! Since when does an airline
let you make changes to a ticket, let alone a change within 24 hours for
FREE!!!!! The 580 figure was what I had
originally paid for the ticket and not the change fee!!!!!!! Can you believe it! After the afternoon I had, this was a great
way to finish off a wonderful Kenyan adventure as look back now, after a day and
laugh about it all already.
This is Kenya people and the traffic won
this fight, even though I fought back, it wasn’t quite enough.
I take comfort that even if I had of
left home an hour earlier we still would not have made it on time and if I had
not gone back outside to get my suitcase from Steve, I still would not have
been any further up in the queue and made the flight.
Nairobi really didn’t want me to leave
yesterday, throwing all she had at me, but surely today can only be better and
I will find myself on the plane tonight.
Touchwood.
Nairobi traffic 3 – Bernie 2.
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