A queue, a sauna and a short hop to Africa

The Air Madagascar plane's tail

Oh, how I love flying. Not. I did once but I think Air Madagascar quickly cured me. We were again delayed (I do not remember when last an Air Mada flight was on time) but at least on this occasion they had the foreknowledge to phone me the day before the flight to inform me it would be delayed by around two hours. Bonus.

That didn’t, however, prevent me from having to queue. It was the most bizarre thing – I arrived when the company rep suggested I arrive and immediately went to the back of the already very long queue (perhaps I was one of the only passengers they had warned about the planned delay). Slowly people filed in behind me, but the next thing, when I looked around, I was once again last. This happened several times and I couldn’t figure it out, because I hadn’t seen any rude passengers pushing in ahead of me. But then it all became clearer when a porter approached me and offered to take me to the front, to a specific check-in counter where “a friend” worked. And all it would cost was a mere $7.50.

I declined, but was approached by at least four other porters with the same story in my hour-and-a-half-long wait. The original guy even came back to see if I wasn’t irritated enough to change my mind and said that his special rate “just for me” was now $5. But, firstly, I didn’t see the point of fast-tracking my check-in because Ivato airport isn’t exactly known for its great eating spots, or phenomenal coffee and so there was nowhere to rush off to; secondly I just don’t believe in it ethically and morally. To be honest, I was quite happy to stand more or less in the same spot and sms friends. At least I wasn’t burning up with fever and struggling to stand like the last time I flew to South Africa.

Eventually a group of missionaries from Antsirabe slotted in behind me and also weren’t tempted to part with their money for the empty satisfaction of getting to the front of the queue before other saps in the same boat (or airport queue as it were).

But that was nothing compared to the absolute bazaar of boarding an overbooked plane. We had people shoving their oversized hand-luggage into the overhead lockers; others being shown their seat and then discovering that another passenger had been booked into the same seat; shouting, jostling; three different flight attendants, at various times, trying to make a bag fit in a space it was clearly not going to fit into … and all this while sitting out on the runway in the midday heat. The plane was soon a sauna – and not a particularly pleasant one…

But I’m going “home” – back to South Africa where I have no fixed abode, but where my doctor will hopefully be inspired to discover what ails my lungs. And for that – the hope of health – it was all worth it!

Waiting, waiting, waiting for the 'plane

Air Trip!

On our Air Madagascar flight: JNB to TNR

A previous post refers.

And so I flew back to a warm, rainless Madagascar on Saturday night after a three-week break in South Africa. At the last minute the Air Madagascar ‘plane had been grounded for “technical reasons”, and a bigger, faster, Boeing 767 was despatched from Tana to fetch us – allowing us to leave a mere five hours after our advertised-departure time.  Fortunately this meant that we had to fly directly to the capital because the 767 was too big to land at any other regional airports.

... Unlike the family I met on the ‘plane that had flown from Mayotte (a tiny island close to our bigger island) to Johannesburg at the beginning of the Christmas holiday. Their “direct” flight resembled a taxi ride or bus trip – with them leaving their airport, going first to the Comores, then Nosy Be, Diego and Morondava (all tiny towns in Madagascar), before finally arriving in Tana...  That’s travel in Africa for you.

But the laughs for me started as soon as I stepped on board. I chose an empty window-seat (it was a case of everyone for him/herself) and strapped myself in, but immediately found myself staring at the wrong end of the safety belt, which had come loose from its fitting – not a good omen. And so I moved. After checking that the seat belt worked I settled in to watch the flight attendants mime the safety instructions. And that was when the arm rest fell off.  I moved again. While this was all happening we were still sitting out on the tarmac, eager to leave, but waiting for our luggage, which had been misplaced because of the long delay. There was an open power point next to my foot, loose wires and a precariously-hanging lifejacket under the thread-bare seat in front of me, it appeared as if fittings were cobbled together from other airplanes’ spare parts, and the side panel to my left had been jammed in place with a wad of toilet paper. But the food was excellent and the staff friendly and beyond-helpful.

This flying jalopy reminded me of the beautiful, old, rinky-tink French taxis which ply Tana’s streets daily, and so, in order to take my mind off all the cabin’s failings, and not dwell on the important facets of flying – like what kept the wings, and engines and wheels in place – I stuck my nose into the in-flight magazine...  The main article boasted about the company’s excellent safety record, and how thoroughly their aircraft were maintained. Ironic. Hilarious!

Everyone was tired, and grouchy, and tetchy after waiting around for so long, and so it would have been very easy to be negative and to take it out on the Air Madagascar staff... But I chose to chuckle. To drink some alcohol. And to pray.

Delays ...

A South African Airways 'plane's tail with Kulula 'plane in the distance

And so here I sit, waiting to fly back to Madagascar. And I'm reminded of all that I love about that country, as well as the many frustrations - one of them being  Air Madagascar! I checked in early and calmly, booked my large piece of luggage through (there was no mad dashing around) and then discovered that the 'plane we would be flying to Tana in was just there, in Tana, grounded, not going anywhere any time soon. Apparently there is another 'plane on its way. Apparently we will leave over four hours after our scheduled departure time. But at least there's no snow around, and good cappuccinos are plentiful.

Madagascar's national carrier is anything but consistent, and there are many urban legends floating around about their changing of routes at the last moment, taxiing off the end of the runway, flying with oxygen masks deployed for no reason (and dangling in the passengers' faces), and other non-confidence-inducing stories. One thing they are supremely consistent in is being late.

Of running, flying, single socks and flight attendants

What I'll miss: Christmas in Madagascar

So, tomorrow I head off to South Africa for the Christmas break. Travel to and from Madagascar is always a challenge – I don’t remember an instance when everything has gone right. I blogged about it in this tome of a post back in April, but the thought of travel got me onto other flight stories I’ve heard or been part of.

Several of them involved running – running through the cold, wet streets of London towards Heathrow while on a 12-hour layover from Canada because I couldn’t extricate myself from the warm innards of a Starbucks; running through the airport in Beijing in 2000, before it was upgraded for the Olympics, (on my way to Mongolia) and then having to sit in a bland room for half a day, unable to buy refreshments, because the sandstorm blowing across the steppes from Kazakhstan had closed the airport in Ulaanbaatar; and slowed down by rude, unhelpful officials at Charles de Gaulle in Paris and having to run, weighed down by 6-months-worth of luggage from the airport, through the labyrinthine metro to catch the TGV (train de grand vitesse) at the Gare de Lyon. Admittedly, it’s much easier doing that with a backpack than with children and all their necessities, like this family and many others out there.

If I ever went to the States I think I would try to avoid airports like the plague, what with the security chaos meted out to all and sundry. Riding cross-country on a motorbike sounds much more fun. Some people are just not good flyers. While living in France an American friend had me in stitches with one of her funnier stories – she was heading home, and had a special pair of flying socks which she wore on the ‘plane. Somehow during the flight she lost one of the socks. When asked to remove her shoes at the security check-in all she could think of was the icky floor she would have to walk on with her sockless foot. And so she hopped through the scanner. Well, number one, this was not in the security protocol, and number two, it set off all sorts of alarm bells. And so off she traipsed followed by an officer to the little booth to be searched. A bit peeved at all the trouble, she put her sockless foot down, saying she thought it more appropriate for a female officer to carry out the search. The moustached reply was, “I am a woman.” I leave the rest of the story to your imagination.

Flying into Europe isn’t any better, mind you. On the Swiss flight into Zurich a few years ago, I went back to the galley to ask for some water. Now, please understand, I realise what a difficult job it is to be a flight attendant. I have a friend who used to fly International routes who had way too many stories about rude, obnoxious, loud passengers; about being tripped while walking down the aisle; and about a colleague who couldn’t take it anymore, snapped, and hit a man over the head with a metal coffee pot. He probably had it coming; she took early retirement... 

But back to my story – so, as politely as possible I said I was sorry to bother her, but could I please have a bottle of water. The very guttural reply had me back-peddling (place Arnold Schwarzenegger accent here), “Get out ov my kitchen now! Ziz is not your home vhere you can do vot you like, it ees mine!”  But I would still rather fly into Switzerland than France.  The friendliest airport I’ve flown to? Definitely Edmonton, Canada, ey.

And that’s about it. Pray the plane leaves on time, is not diverted to some remote airstrip to pick up passengers with chickens and ducks, and remains on the runway when landing...