South Africa: If only you knew how we roll

Travelling well

My friends and some I have travelled together with know that when it comes to travel arrangements, I leave nothing to chance. The comfort of travel is just as important as the destination. As I leave my home, I expect things to be just so at the very least, I expect standards, high standards and will not flinch at demanding them.

For my return after a month in Cape Town, I ran the gauntlet of things out of kilter with the arrangements I had made. My return leg was Cape Town – Johannesburg – Paris – Manchester. For the over 12 years I lived in the Netherlands, I have retained my loyalty with KLM – AirFrance, a slight inconvenience of stopping over in Paris or Amsterdam, but it redounds to the loyalty scheme, I can bear it.

It’s easy, not really

However KLM – AirFrance do not run domestic routes in South Africa if you do not fly directly to Cape Town from Paris or Amsterdam, your stopover in Johannesburg requires you retrieve your luggage and use partners they have agreements with to complete the final leg, it is neither a codeshare nor alliance situation, just an arrangement.

I could not check-in for my return flight because the KLM – AirFrance app redirected me to Kulula, the booking reference was invalid. I had to visit the airport to have this fixed, they could only make arrangements as far as Johannesburg and that was the beginning of my ordeal. [kulula is not a separate company, but is a trading name of Comair, which also operates flights as a franchisee of British Airways.

I have much baggage

When I arrived at the airport for my trip, I found out that my queue-jumping access was not valid for check-in, only after security. At the counter, the agent then came up with all sorts of rules, Kulula only allows one checked-in baggage for the hold and one as carry-on.

I was having none of it, the printout from the Kulula sale offices the day before already indicated I could check-in two pieces of luggage. The KLM – AirFrance app said as much too, for all legs. In fact, it would be risible to have a situation where at the point of embarkation you had less checked-in luggage than when you were in transit.

A bit of back and forth with some senior official who said the rules at the airport in our conversation took precedence over the contract to carry my luggage on my ticket. I was about to relent, it would have been easier to storm off to a KLM – AirFrance counter and have this trashed out. I shouldn’t be having that conversation, it should be between the airlines.

Flights of fancy

Eventually, as the preponderance of evidence and facts weighed heavily on the situation, the official instructed the counter clerk to check-in all my baggage as long as each individual item did not weigh more than 23kg. I was scooting it at 22.8kg and 22.2kg.

I made it through security before seeing off Brian on his earlier and on schedule flight to Johannesburg. Soon, it was time to board my flight but something was wrong, there was no aircraft at the gangway of the proposed gate. I was the only one with queue-jumper status, it meant little in the end.

Our flight was going to be delayed 30 minutes before we were told the boarding gate had changed. On arrival at the new boarding gate, more tales and fantastic stories before were told there was a fault with the plane and it had been taxied off to a hanger. I guess we knew something was on.

Terminal déjà vu

Then, the plane was cancelled and we had to board a bus to arrivals terminal where we were to retrieve our baggage, go up to the sales desk for us to be shunted onto other airlines and then the check-in process, security and all that. In all my years of travel, I have never experienced this, and the way the Kulula staff informed us and handled the situation could be better. They’ll score a 6 out of 10.

Anyway, there were some really helpful staff before a good number on that Kulula flight had connecting flights from Johannesburg, we were anxious but calm. One exception was a lady shouting at the staff, it was out of their control and it did her no favours, she was obstreperous and demanding, irksome to say the least.

How we roll

I was booked on a BA flight, run by ComAir Limited in South Africa, I haven’t flown BA since March 2000 just before the DotCom crash. I was allocated a seat when I checked in my luggage, but by the time I presented my ticket to board the plane after security, I had been upgraded to business class. The obstreperous woman thought she was losing out on favours questioning why some of us were in business class. Woman, you don’t know how we roll.

She never got upgraded and she probably stewed through the flight to Johannesburg. We arrived in Johannesburg about 2 hours behind schedule, had some time with Brian before I was on my way back home.

Nigeria: Kick out all foreign British Airways staff

Crowding out the President

It would appear Yar’Adua’s visit to Germany must have done us all a world of good. Whilst he returns to Nigeria, hale and hearty, it appears he must have had a Blackberry keeping him abreast of issues pertaining to Nigerians globally rather than just those in the motherland.

The one agitating the Nigerians in Diaspora at the moment is that pertaining to the maltreatment of Nigerians on a British Airways flight in March that has lead to serious Internet activism calling for the total boycott of British Airways services.

Before I address that matter in much detail, I just have to note that the welcoming entourage for the President included the vice-President which is fine, 8 state governors, party apparatchiks, his children, grand-children, in-laws and God knows what other patronage seeking well-wishers and fair weather ‘friends’ who should be busy at their desks making the life of Nigerians better.

New titles for the chiefs

I could not help but notice that the wife of the vice-President does not have the common and cheapened chief moniker that everyone including the rat in Nigeria has, she is addressed as Dame Patience Jonathan – I would not plumb the depths of unnecessary research to find out that came about.

I suspect before long, chief would be so passé, you will have to be Count, Countess, Lord, Baroness with each ostentatious show of vacuous titles vying against each other in the race to be grander than dog shit, is Nigeria not a republic, who is the monarch dishing out this silliness?

Activism breeds no patronage

Anyway, back to British Airways, it appears they are getting engulfed in a maelstrom; maybe that is a strong word, but there seems to be some movement on the matter, the President has “tasked” someone to get on the case and find out what really happened.

I am glad about that because African governments are rarely interested in activist issues because there is no patronage or incipiently corrupt gain to be had from these matters where there are contracts, privileges and vested interests to serve which help ascribe grand schemes to the name or tenure of the politicians involved.

It also represents why we do not have a maintenance culture because nobody gets praised for maintaining a big project in some backwater, but everyone gets kudos and payback for being part of a grand project especially those dumped on us by friendly international organisations.

Not build for usefulness

The issue is not about keeping things running, it is about having put it there – as I finished the book – Undercover Economist – the author gave an example of a library that was built to raise the status of the school to university level. It was designed by an ex-student architect and it was grand and beautiful but completely useless.

Thankfully, the librarian was a VSO posting who could stand up to the principal, she refused to move the books into the new library because each time it rained the roof served as a funnel that filled the library with water and it would have ruined the books.

The principal still insisted on moving the books but resistance is keeping that from happening – the issue is simple, powerful interests build dams, factories, hospitals and all sorts of things necessary for good-living standards but none are really geared towards improving those standards, they are there for accumulation of kudos of the power brokers.

That is the plague that affects many projects in poor countries, including Nigeria, in fact, the library issue was in Cameroon, we had a similar situation with a hospital burnt down in the North of Nigeria and the governor lamenting his reputation had been destroyed.

When the issue should have been why a hospital finished 18 months before was not commissioned because they had not been able to invite the President to open it.

Send in the natives

I have seriously digressed, but these are issues that need to be aired – when the government asked for British Airways staff to meet to discuss these matters, they sent in two natives when higher management who would most probably be Caucasians should have gone to represent British Airways.

I used the word natives because, the whole issue smacks of outrageous levity and complete indifference to matters that do impugn the dignity of Nigerians. These tin-pot bwanas go to Nigeria and live with the swagger of Colonial District Officers in opulence and receiving obeisance of obsequious, fawning and hapless natives that they would never attain in Great Britain.

The natives would know the language of their kind, the colonial concept of divide-and-rule (just read the topic on the link) returns in the 21^st Century, the effrontery is breathtakingly unbelievable, but the reality is clear for all to see.

Kick them all out

They have become untouchables who are answerable to no one and meting out malevolence with the aplomb of a potentate – in my mind, every foreign manager of British Airways in Nigeria should be kicked out, somehow, they would not take this matter seriously till our bark has a good shark bite too.

Next, the British Airways licence to fly to Nigeria should be suspended for at least a month – Nigerians who wish to travel to Nigeria should consider sending money instead of visiting to show off that they have arrived with hedonistic recklessness.

If we are going to get a change from British Airways which appears to have become an embodiment of institutionalised racism, it must hit them hard in both their pocket and the public perception of that organisation. If their senior staff cannot respond to an invitation from our government then they have no reason to be in our country neither should be allowed to profit through commercial activity in our country.

Restitution is beyond costing

The restitution required of British Airways should also include a public apology in National newspapers of the Nigeria and Great Britain – we will not relent till the cancer of ineptitude that eviscerates Nigerians of comforts that others enjoy when travelling British Airways to other places is excised.

Pound for pound and mile for mile, we pay well over the odds for those services, we should expect the service to be impeccable – this requires they replace the dead-ender crew we get with better trained, cultured and understanding people who know the whole concept of service.

Additional Reference

Robert Fisk of the Independent on the British Airways treatment of customers and his personal experiences.

Boycott British Airways

Oh! Golly Gosh!

The British Airways (BA) have not only gotten their knickers in a twist, the buffoons have had their shoe laces tied together at the start of every race they have entered that they fall splat when the starting orders are given.

Being British, I think I have flown that airline only once and never returned, the service between the UK and West Africa is quite lucrative for BA because the choices leave people paying well over the odds for outrageous service and maximum discomfort from the most uncouth that can be found of the most dreadful crew in that organisation.

The story I read through blogs posted by Funmi Iyanda and Chxta which is spreading disgust but not fast enough to get BA to come to its senses leaves me incandescent with rage.

Disrespect of customers

The Mirror newspaper carried the news and I could very well see myself in the shoes and place of the person that has suffered the most from the incident.

The first issue is the utter disrespect that a commercial airline has for its paying customers that they would allow possibly unstable and seriously distressed customers on the plane where security and restraint can in some ways be used in excess.

A deportee was brought on the flight and under the “gentle” handling of law enforcement that the man was screaming words to the effect that he was going to die.

Wherever, I might have been on that plane after a while of hearing that, I would have gotten out of my seat to find out what was going on, that is what Ayodeji Omotade did – someone who in my view had not allowed the overwhelming indifference of society to inure him to the suffering of others. (His ordeal in his own words appears here.)

Deportees and sadder memories

Many Nigerians would be aware of a case last year where another distressed deportee (Osamuyia Aikpitanhi) had a bag put over his head that he died in Spain – it would have been a basic reflexive thing to have said, “Please, don’t kill him”, just as he could have said, “Please, be careful”, which would have meant the same thing but implying the first statement.

The ever so “friendly” crew buffeted him saying the police were doing what was their job where they should have been working hard to stop other passengers from getting just as distressed as the non-paying deportee.

Maybe transporting deportees is a more lucrative business for BA; I sure do not want to share a plane with someone who has been put on the plane under duress.

In fact, if there are so many deportees to be returned to a country, why do the immigration authorities not arrange a “Gitmo” style plane to take them back to their countries? Though, I think that would garner the worst kind publicity for them – but if they cannot find ways to handle deportees more humanely, they would just have to remain where they are.

Distress and injustice

The deportee was taken off the flight, and then they came for Ayodeji Omotade who they thought was a disrupting influence and the police gave him hell, it is completely unacceptable – he should be talking to his Member of Parliament (Jonathan Shaw) forthwith – that would go to the heart of the matter quickly.

The pilot seeing that there would be an insurrection for this victimisation of the innocent, something they have gotten away with for ages but not this time, then ordered all Nigerians off the plane – 136 of them – that is his prerogative.

As usual, the “spineless” onlookers from other nations had now been terrorised enough not to get involved just in case they are slapped with some ridiculous charge – considering they might already have been psychologically damaged by what they had observed before – but BA does not care a jot about customers going to West Africa, no pleasantries just aggravation.

Blunders A-plenty

Then BA gets its quarry, the lucrative deportee back on the plane, with 136 empty seats it flies off to Nigeria with a statement that a large number of passengers became disruptive and that they take any threats against their crew or passengers very seriously and this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated.

If BA cannot realise that devaluing the quality of travel of their customers and creating distress by bringing on the flight a seriously distressed passenger would create that kind of situation, they are their own worst enemy.

British Airways has form in not knowing how to do good customer service or business that works; from their run in with Richard Branson in the dirty tricks saga where they thought Sir Richard was insignificant and he then took them to the cleaners.

Their ethnic tailfin designs got the greatest putdown from Baroness Thatcher when she put her handkerchief over the awful designs that replaced the British flag, they also got caught out in a fuel surcharge cartel Sir Richard shopping them to the authorities again and now Terminal 5 is taking BA to its terminal decline – this one with Nigerians should be the very last straw.

BA has nothing to make the British proud of and in all is an utter global disgrace, a change in management could not be called for too soon already, that organisation is an organic and malignant disaster.

Boycott BA

Ayodeji Omotade has now been banned from travelling by BA, this man is not Naomi Campbell by any stretch of the imagination – in my view, anyone who has any affiliation with Nigeria should boycott that organisation altogether – fly anything but BA.

I do not know if we have an Ambassador in the UK who speaks up for Nigerians, by Mr. Omotade is also British so his Member of Parliament would suffice in his case, but in the case of others somebody must be up for them.

There is a petition on this matter called Nigerians boycott British Airways for this outrageous treatment of Nigerians, please sign in and voice your protest. Please register your protest with an identity and possibly a comment, anonymous protests do not carry that much weight.

Coward, the Courageous Pilot

Coward the Courageous Man

To break away from the madness of the world contained in the seriousness and incredulity of the news I sometimes switch to the make-belief world of cartoons.

One such cartoon is titled Courage the Cowardly Dog – one could not have thought that in real life we would experience nouns and adverbs switch places in what normally ends up in harrowing tragedy. Air crashes.

The irony could not have been lost on anyone who heard of the plane crash at the London Heathrow Airport on Thursday, that everyone walked away alive because of the dogged determination, the consummate professionalism and the courage of co-pilot John Coward, 41.

Effective investigations

For now, we do not know why the plane failed to give thrust when demanded by the auto-pilot and manually by the co-pilot.

The Boeing 777-200ER airliner supposedly has an excellent safety record, but the investigators would still have to determine what went wrong and why – I am pleased that these investigations have excellent follow-through in lessons learnt and effective action to be taken by the airline industry.

Within the joy of survival for which many would be thankful is the cack-handedness of British Airways that left the survivors who did not need hospital treatment without succour and refreshments for hours and they received improper assistance considering their baggage and personal effects which would have been left on the plane.

It would appear the ground staff did not exercise an equivalent level of care and concern as exemplified by the airline crew in bring the plane down “safely” and evacuating the plane with calm efficiency.

Meanwhile, Many Thanks to John Coward, the Courageous Man.

Nigeria will not tolerate rude airlines

Aviation in better hands, it seems

After all the aircraft accidents in Nigeria which lead to the redeployment of the oaf that was put in charge of overseeing that carnage, the replacement with Femi Fani-Kayode as Aviation Minister left many rather unimpressed, most especially myself.

It would however appear Mr Fani-Kayode is doing something useful in that position and this should be commended.

He has revoked licenses of some airlines, berated some of their activities and exacted policies to help improve safety and bolster confidence in a precarious aviation industry.

Now, he has set his sights on poor customer service on airlines that operate between Europe and Nigeria; their rude staff, as reported by the BBC.

Rude trolley dollies

I have heard of instances where passengers have been treated with utter contempt by trolley dollies (cabin crew) and it has required launching a formal complaint with the threat of involving race relations to obtain grudging apologies from these airlines.

What is really annoying is that these African routes are rarely bargains, there is good business and a profit being made from Nigerian travellers but the quality of service is despicable, sometimes to the extreme.

A grievance to be addressed

Mr Fani-Kayode said he “would not sit by and allow our people to be treated like animals by anybody or for any reason”

This is a valid grievance that needs to be addressed pronto by both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic and if this information has not percolated upwards that it has had Becky Livingstone of BA saying, “We take great pride in our customer service and have the same excellent standards for all our customers throughout the world”. They have now been given notice and they have to act.

If BA is very distressed, it is because they have rotten staff, visiting the Aviation Minister does not address his concerns if they do not improve the service and Virgin Atlantic is preparing a response to his valid and truthful accusations.

Asking that Nigerian passengers be treated with respect and decency is not too much to ask, especially as we also pay premium fares.

Do not cross the cross

Handbagging rotten design

“Terrible, terrible, absolutely terrible”, she said as she covered those so-called “world designs” with a handkerchief and walked off with her trademark Salvatore Ferragamo handbag.

Years, before, they paid hefty legal fees, generous compensation and ate humble pie as their institutionalised “dirty tricks” campaign against a business man who does not wear a suit blew up in their faces.

The was the watershed, the comeuppance of the domineering influence of the bastions of British establishment as the common man refused to be cowed by overbearing and reckless abuse of privilege to perpetrate what is patently wrong.

Secular uniforms for the working pagans

Generally, British Airways just seems to find a way of hugging the spotlight for the wrong reasons which border on the inexplicable earning brick-bats from all people of stature till they are forced to adopt what is supposed to be the common sense view.

There are people who would promote the secularist argument about religious symbols and apparel, and this excites social and political comment nowadays with the veil and the burqa.

The cross, a symbol of Christianity was the centre of a debate that had the principled stance of a BA employee elicit the support of civil liberties and put the BA in the crosshairs of religious disappointment and political opprobrium.

Eventually, the fence-sitting Archbishop of Canterbury finally cantered into the debate having flown to Rome in a BA flight – read as a tacit approval of the BA stance or a lack of conviction on a rather serious religious issue.

The employee had gotten suspended for wearing a cross having not been able to reach an agreement with her employers to compromise on a basic inoffensive principle – visibly wearing a cross no bigger than a small coin.

Disappearing Christianity in Europe

This is not the only problem with the way Christianity is being consigned to ignominious irrelevance, you only have to visit a card shop and notice how few cards talk of Christmas and many more talk of Winterval, Seasons Greetings and so on – God forbid, the mention the Christ or Jesus – people might find it offensive to hear about Christmas but be willing to take the holiday and the knock-down sales of the consequent days.

We now have to apologise for being Christian in Europe as people cannot profess their faith publicly because a foreign but non-indigenous faith is gaining prominence. We know the dominance of those faiths in their origin-lands is used to persecute other faiths, with impunity.

Sometimes, it appears political correctness is thumping commonsense values to the chagrin of many and this is becoming unacceptable leading to growing animosity between formerly accommodating societies and the seething intolerance to visiting cultures.

Teaching an old dog …

Now, that BA has backed down from this unsupportable stance having made us cringe from the bluster of official-speak and semantics, the impending boycott of their services can be suspended. Till the bishop customer cannot wear a visible large cross, the imam cannot wear a turban or show his prayer beads or some other inspired idea that a publicity faux-pas official can dream up to bring the BA back into the spotlight of every stupid thing that exemplifies British-ness (Brutishness). Just what we need – every time.

If British Airways can learn any lessons, it would be, you must not cross the cross.

References

New Tory cover-up shock

BA turns tail on colours

BBC ON THIS DAY | 11 | 1993: BA dirty tricks against Virgin cost £3m

Christian BA employee to take legal action over suspension for wearing cross