Homeward bound from South Africa

The weight of travel

Packing your bags is not an easy task, especially if you have three pieces of luggage to evenly distribute the weight, a rucksack with kit and medication, and suit bag.

The suit bag contained a set of pyjamas that for my recent modes of travel have not felt that convenient to wear, a jacket and scarf for the abrupt change in the weather I will encounter, and a spare set of incontinence underwear. If I may reiterate an established notion, I am a traveller, not a backpacker.

Intercontinental incontinence

When you are on a plane and there is a queue for the unisex toilets, besides rocking from foot to foot, you just want to be careful no spillage occurs before you gain access to the facilities.

On both my outbound and return journeys, it has not been that bad, and I have not had to wave my "Just Can't Wait" card. The moment I feel an urge, I do not second guess it, I make my way to the toilets.

I had scheduled my Uber pick up the night before, my assigned driver cancelled, the alternative was stationary just over a mile away for 20 minutes, and not responding to my communications, that by the time Uber suggested he was late, I was assigned a third driver who then arrived within 5 minutes of the scheduled time.

The ride to the airport was easy and fast, early morning bookings before the break of dawn can be a bargain too. He helped load and unload my luggage and I took tentative steps to the check-in counter close to the entrance.

Half a day air bound

Though I have lost my Platinum and Gold loyalty status, you still get some priority service on Silver Flying Blue status. My luggage was checked through to Manchester, and I was conveyed from the customer assistance lounge, taken through security checks and passport control to the boarding gate, then wheeled to the door of the flight where I was the second passenger to board.

Seating was comfortable enough, a slight seat recline, a lounge support for my legs, and a footrest, along with a blanket and a pillow. That was the beginning of the first leg of my journey of just 11h13, I guess I have done that a few times already.

A 3-hour stopover in Amsterdam before I board another flight to Manchester had me ensconced in the customer assistance lounge on comfortable seats. They should consider serving beverages rather than have people lumber off to the shops. A nearby toilet would be helpful too.

A chat with my support person

Then I was brought to boarding desk as one of the first to board. Arriving in Manchester, I stayed on the flight until everyone was almost off, my customer support wheelchair was up a flight of stairs and then I was conveyed to passport control and then to baggage reclaim.

The support assistant was from Somalia and after informing him of why I had travelled to South Africa, I explained why as a Black man he had to be conversant with his prostate health. His uncle recently had radiotherapy for throat cancer at the Christie Hospital and he had chaperoned his uncle a few times.

Between snatches of reality and humour, he got the message and point-blank refused a tip, he felt he had gained so much from our conversation and that was enough. I called an Uber for home and ended up in a luxury car, the driver from Africa had lived in Italy for two decades before coming to the UK.

You will always be understood

He was concerned about his lack of fluency in English that he felt was a handicap. My view was as long as he could put words together, he would be understood. He should always speak his mind and besides, many of those who would typically abuse him are not as successful as him driving an E-class Mercedes Benz, he should in fact celebrate his achievements.

Obviously, on some occasions, he simply got his son into the conversation with establishments or the authorities. Every likelihood was he would get whatever he intended done.

As I arrived at home, he helped unload my luggage and brought them into the foyer, all the help I received from door-to-door of about 18 hours was the preparation for rest after such a lengthy journey. I unlocked my door, my house sitter had outdone himself this time, somewhere between it having been hit by a super hurricane and a full ransack of the house, I was soon pushing a vacuum cleaner and brushing the floors. I found the energy; it was the very last straw.

En route to the Garden Route

To George to judge

Completely off the beaten track, at least by our own standard, we have strayed away from the ambit of Cape Town to the furthest we have ever been to George, the centre of the famed Garden Route.

Planning for the trip was a bit fraught as we first thought of driving the 5 or so hours from Cape Town, but that would have been Brian alone at the pedals, the gear stick and the steering wheel as I cannot drive and who is to say with his keen sense of direction we are not first in Johannesburg before we get to George? Not worth the risk.

We decided to fly, and the scheduled 50-minute flight lasted just 33 minutes as there are no speeding fines for flying. Though we noticed something quite distressing at the airport, a child for whatever reason was being told by his burly guardian that he would have his bones broken. We maybe should have done something, yet we hope that would not be the child’s lived reality.

What a time ago

George is everything Cape Town is not, quiet, provincial, bucolic and with a definitive colonial feel. The hotel we are staying at backs onto a golf course with the first floor being the first. As you drive in you drive past chalets all with the customary finish of chalk white paint, the windowpanes and doors finished in green.

The veranda of our room and the adjoining ones is deep with a wooden balustrade defining the balcony with a tar-brown coating, the outdoor furniture patterned in cast or wrought iron and painted white. You could feel caught in a time warp with a throwback to the 1950s or earlier.

Before it was dusk, the frogs were croaking, and you can only wonder what else we’ll hear through the night. There is a busy family atmosphere with kids milling around with abandon, not the kind of place we would have chosen with prior knowledge.

Everyone is different

Our neighbour to the left came out with a glass in hand, one leg in prosthetics and after a greeting, we engaged in conversation. His daughter, nice but acting shy might just be so in the presence of strangers. His wife later came out to take in a chair, her right arm in a long sleeve that looked like it was fully tattooed, I had to ask.

Two verandas to the right, a man stepped out to light up, I do wonder how people have not given up smoking in this pandemic. Anyway, the olfactory glands of you know who had caught a whiff of the smoke long before he had taken a puff. Some people would give canines a beating in a sniff test. I am not close by a mile. We retire to hopefully explore this region tomorrow and the day after.

British Airways must prosecute BAF 2276 emergency rule breakers

It is criminal

When I read of the criticism of passengers by the pilot of the British Airways Flight 2276 that caught fire just before take-off in Las Vegas, I pondered about the attachment of people to things.

This was a situation where everyone was in grave danger, a fully fuel laden flight with one of the engines on fire, one should not contemplate the consequence if they were not able to evacuate saving 172 souls.

Yet, in the emergency as observed in the picture that accompanied the news story, there is at least two passengers running from the flight with their bulky hand luggage.

What informs this attachment?

Their getting their so precious goods could have been the difference between life and death and there are too many stories through our humanity where the attachment to things has meant the end of all things for that person and a story of regret told by others.

Part of the aircraft safety instructions suggests, maybe advices, but should command that when an evacuation emergency is in process, we should abandon all whilst ladies take off their heeled shoes and make for the emergency exit in an orderly fashion.

Putting goods in or taking goods out of the overhead bins in an aircraft is rarely the smoothest activity. Even in premium class, the space is tight, people can hardly pass by when one is either loading or unloading the overhead bins. In an emergency, accessing the overhead bins is not only an impediment to safe evacuation, it presents a grave risk to passengers and crew alike.

How we endanger others

Only last week I was doing the mandatory health and safety course at work and I noticed that I risked prosecution if I ignore alarms for fire drills or real emergencies. The fire warden usually leaves the floor or building last, it means they are under obligation to ensure everyone has vacated the building or they and the organisation can be deemed negligent.

I think the same rule applies to disembarking an aircraft during an emergency, just as it is the age-old rule that the captain is the last to leave a ship in distress.

Yet, there is a psyche of acquisitive hedonism that seems to possess the mind of some who regardless of how their life is endangered cannot be separated from their things and I fear that things will be the end of them.

A prosecutory deterrent is necessary

However, the need for a lesson of deterrence must not be missed, the said people who ignored the basic safety rule by picking up their hand luggage must be sought after, prosecuted and have heavy penalties imposed on them. It might not moderate their behaviour to things, but it must signal a complete intolerance of people who selfishly impede an emergency evacuation exercise foolishly endangering themselves and most especially and unreasonably the lives of others.

Yes, they got away with their lives and their precious things, but this must never be the end of the matter and I hope it isn’t. They were lucky but they took unacceptable chances that could have led to grievous consequences and possible loss of life. I would hate to have people like this on my flight, anyone should.

If you feel you are boarding a plane with your most precious possessions and I think everyone is, it is our lives most of all, get insurance for your goods at the very least. If in an emergency we are to evacuate an aircraft leaving our things, with life all things lost can after a temporary setback be regained, a life lost, is a life lost, hopefully without the tag of foolishness.

Thought Picnic: Flight from this reality

Flight now boarding

Family is a strange construct very much like choosing your seat on a multi-hop destination flight without being aware of who will be sitting next to you, if anyone will and who might be sitting elsewhere on the plane being nice or disruptive – the journey will eventually be what you make it.

Crude as it seems, the crew are usually already on-board to usher us in, there to cater to our needs and administer the necessities of order and discipline required for a smooth flight. The crew being the forebears in a manner of speaking.

As you board the first, you might be the first to take your seat or there might be others who have taken their seats before you. Once the manifest is correlated with assembled and seated passengers, the flight takes off to the next destination. It might traverse turbulence and more before it lands at the next airport.

Flight now changing

The experience is part of the journey and whilst one might converse with co-travellers in close proximity to oneself, one can be otherwise engaged in thought, in reading or some other activity.

At this stopover, passengers might embark or disembark, other seats might be left and whilst they are reassigned to others, or empty seats might be filled. Luggage unloaded and loaded on, fresh supplies brought on and waste taken away – that is the life of a flight in service.

We take-off again to a new destination learning of new arrivals, noticing them or ignoring them depending on the disposition of the moment.

The journey can be fun or a chore, breathing the shared air of depressurised cabins can have the most debilitating effects on your social interactions at certain times, but the journey must continue as the cycle of life exposes us to new knowledge, new acquaintances, new experiences and probably old memories.

Flight now rowdy

The bane of family remains one in which you have not much in terms of choice, but you can exercise a lot in terms of desire, the desire to be influenced or the desire to left alone. There are times when the latter is more than a welcome prospect, it becomes the best prospect.

We all need peace and quiet, the incessant squabbles where others are called upon not for the purpose of fresh objective eyes but to take sides in bludgeoning another just is not what many sometimes already isolated want to be engaged in.

Do we really need to talk? To be honest, we have all heard enough, if the crew will not deal with disruptive passengers, it is probably time to disembark than continue to the next destination. Find one voice of harmony to keep this journey on or I’m skipping the next leg for some sightseeing.

I’ll catch the next flight, sadly, I still can’t choose my co-travellers yet.

Thought Picnic: It's an Airfares scam, at best

Robbed blind

A few weeks ago, I visited London flying in from Amsterdam. When I looked at the pricing structure that added up to the total cost for that ticket, I decided it was important that a documentation is made of the different tariffs to indicate what a travesty the charade of airfare pricing had become.

Beyond explanation

The figures above were the breakdown sent to me in the confirmation email for my flight, they appear to speak for themselves and there are the many questions that you will find yourself asking on observation.

For instance, the cost of the flight itself is less than 50% of the total cost, why do the add-ons exceed the primary or principal cost?

It becomes daunting when you realise as in the fourth column; a comparison to the cost of the flight itself. I have to pay a Carrier-imposed international surcharge which as you can see is over a quarter of the total cost and by comparison almost two-thirds of the amount I am paying for the flight.

Indeed, it is a black box

KLM offers a lengthy but rather vague explanation of what goes into making up that number.

Due to varying costs outside the control of KLM, the carrier will impose an international surcharge per flight segment both on the outbound and return trips as well as any intermediate flights. The range of the surcharge amounts may vary according to your itinerary. Complete details on applicable carrier imposed international surcharge per itinerary can be found on the klm.us booking tool, at the bottom of the 'Flight Overview' page where the total fare is given.

No, I am none the wiser as to why I have to pay this surcharge which is literally an indeterminate tax composed of costs outside the control of KLM as if the four other charges and the duty are not also outside the control of KLM apart from the booking fee.

For a long time, I have tried to understand the inscrutable conundrum of airfare costs and I must say it was better when you were clearly able to see the fuel surcharge and other atrocious rip-offs that set the aircraft industry out as an outlier to every concept of common-sense.

Air brigandage

Maybe I should spare a thought for those leaving a USA airport because by the time you have reviewed every element of fees, taxes and charges in addition to the ones we get fleeced off in Europe – those who feared the highwaymen of old would have been visited by the mile-high bandits of the Wild West of Europe across the pond.

According to that KLM website, the following types of fees are charged when leaving a USA airport:

• US international transportation tax
• US INS user fee
• US customs user fee
• US APHIS fee
• USA passenger facility charge
• USA passenger civil aviation security service fee

How do they get away with this?

Holiday Snaps: Holiday ends

July should find other places

And so the day came to pack my bags and return home after 17 days away. I cannot say July is the best time to visit Gran Canaria, it is hot, can be humid and many of the locals have gone on holiday.

I cannot say I was much enamoured by the holiday crowd either, things were strange, bizarre, incredible and quite unfunny at times nothing like the people you see in over Christmas and the New Year or in May. I had to deal with animated squeals of negrito, negrito caught between disgust, annoyance and amusement.

I have also been on the island in June, August and September, I think I like May and the turn of the year is usually running away from the cold of Northern Europe.

Almost a disconnect

My pickup arrived on time and the drive to the airport was without event, I was next in the queue and after check-in I settled in the lounge waiting for boarding.

There was a delay to boarding; it took the best part of one hour, with a stop-over in Madrid there was the risk of not making the connection to Amsterdam or having to run for the plane with the danger of my baggage following a lot longer after.

There was only 10 minutes to spare before boarding when I arrived in Madrid and I was already mentally prepared for a night at the airline’s expense in Madrid if things did not link up but the airport crew strike in France meant my connecting flight would also leave late.

Not caught speeding

The flight still took off just 5 minutes later and watching the flight tracking system on the monitor we reached the cruising height of almost 28,000ft but never made 1,000 km/hour, I had my camera ready to take the picture of that but the highest land speed we reached was 998 km/hour before we began descent and the feeling was strange to noticed the reduction in speed to just over 700 km/hour and the to think you’ll never be allowed to do 298 km/hour on land itself except in special circumstances or on high-speed trains.

We arrived in Amsterdam on time where it was 22° Celsius at 22:40 hours, not much different from where I had departed earlier in the day.

Truly home

My good friend came to collect me saving me the struggle of hauling my 30kg of baggage back home. Now to sort out the leakage on my boiler, holiday sometimes takes you from of thinking about these things, but for every journey away there is that home is really sweet home.

In response to the question that came on up on my Facebook page about where that home is, well, it is not in Nigeria, it is in Holland, my heart is in Europe even if my mind does do a lot of thinking about Nigeria not to say that I feel like an Englishman – there is no point pretending the association back then amounted to acceptance, we were singled out as foreigners no matter how hard we tried to adapt to being like our people.

Fly away holiday

Work hard play hard

Going on holiday is an integral part of my work-life balance, I work hard but reasonably within the hours God provides rather than all hours as if we have reached the end of time.

A whole stretch of working is always followed by a period of holiday that would last a minimum of 15 days and can go up 22 days.

The holiday we get in Europe is one reason why I will not cross the pond for work, productivity should always include the ability to have more time off, productivity is not living in fear of losing your job and only having 2 weeks off a year – that, in my view is slavery. Period. To borrow an Americanism.

For good reason you need the first week to wind down, the second to get out and do stuff beyond the routine of bathing, beer and beach.

By the third week you should be ready to return and be the freshest proponent of your calling and career as well as have stories to tell about your experiences and adventures – my stories are told in my blogs and pictures – I take plenty of them and throw them up on flickr.

Routine or adventure?

Planning a holiday is not too difficult, it settles somewhere between seeing something new which I do at least once a year and returning to old haunts which have their benefits of comfort, security, knowledge and service.

Packing for holiday is however a completely different conundrum and one struggles between what one wants and what one needs. Not to forget anything I might need is what I want but I never end up with what is really needed.

So, after shopping for holiday things – first aid kit, vitamins, batteries and reading material it was left to me to pack for 3 weeks holiday in the sun, not just shorts but other things that would allow you to turn out well without having to go shopping for those things whilst away.

Scheduled for a charter

Usually, I travel to Gran Canaria by scheduled flights but that includes a stop-over in either Barcelona or Madrid and a 4 and a half hour direct flight from Amsterdam ends up run for 7 hours or more.

The benefits of scheduled flights are myriad, 4 trips to my frequent flyer account, double the miles and rights if things go wrong – though I was miffed when I found that flying on my own accord was almost EUR 400 more expensive than if I went by the included charter flight.

Besides, I am able to take up to 35kg as opposed to a paltry 20kg, that is just about enough for basic makeup and lip gloss.

So, I packed and weighed the stuff on a set of two scales, one digital the other analog and it came to 24kg, so I unpacked everything and struggled to jettison some stuff, it came down to 22kg on my contrived measuring system – it was in fact 24.5kg and I had to pay excess baggage to Transavia, a KLM company that KLM does not accord any flyer bonuses.

The way they get you to pay up is to ask if you want to jettison stuff at the check-in desk – how you could ever do that, I do not know, the suitcase alone is probably 8kg – I should have asked if I could have sealed mailbags.

My boarding pass was ripped up and I was given an invoice to pay up at a KLM window where I was issued with another boarding pass, but really, I could have just had it printed out at one of the terminals again – my suitcase was already on its way onto the plane.

For the witching hour

Did I say, my taxi picked me up at 2:00AM? I do not enjoy charter flights for all sorts of reasons and that is one of them – our flight was to take-off at 5:15AM and it was already airborne at 5:08AM – we were the second flight out of Schiphol.

My seat was on the second row, typical of when I travel on scheduled flights and I always have the window, a magazine or two and a Sudoku puzzle book, my Creative Zen Mozaic MP3 player was playing back the classical playlist as I settled down to a nap, a snore and the occasional jolt.

The seat belt was quite extended, the person who occupied it before me must have been wider than they were tall, but there was no heat from the last sitter.

Front row seats also have that unusual situation of being sparsely populated, the middle seat was unoccupied, and travelling Economy really did feel like I was travelling Business Class.

The man behind me must have been in his 60s but he fidgeted like a kid, banging at the back of my seat that I first gave his wife that look, she restrained him for a while and it continued, then I gave him that look and it stopped.

Observing people dropped off

On arrival at Las Palmas, at baggage collection you could see a study in bizarre human behaviour, I am no anthropologist but the baggage comes out on a conveyor belt meaning eventually no matter where you are stood along the 70 metres of conveyor belt, your baggage will eventually get to you, but they all bunch up that the starting point and wreak havoc on each other collecting their stuff.

I now arrange a personal transfer from the airport to the hotel because when we travelled on the coach we had a tour of all hotels in Maspalomas and Playa del Ingles until we are the last to be dropped off 75 minutes later.

I arrived at the hotel to the greeting – Welcome to your second home, Sir – it is my 4^th time at the Riu Palace Maspalomas Hotel and I am a creature of habit because the staff here have the habit of making my stay the complete absence of stress the epitome of ease.

The rooms are not that luxurious, I have been in bigger suites, but it is people that make hotels not the building – as I remember, when leaving home, the heavens were open with rain pouring down, I arrived at my second home and the heavens were open with rays of sunshine kissing my body and making me tan naturally.

It is too far away to think of the 25^th, I’ll just have a cocktail and put my feet up today.

Sun shines hard in Gran Canaria

Scheduled child seating

After the dreadful cold of the last few months, I have embarked on another sanity retention and enhancement escapade, I am back in Gran Canaria where the mercury is rising to the point that I could do a cold shower without a shiver.

Arkefly could not guarantee flights for the times I wanted to travel so I decided to ditch unreliable charter arrangements and go for a schedule flight with a stop-over in Barcelona on the way out and one at Madrid on the return in 15 days time.

I could not believe my amazing luck, for the third time in succession, I had another child behind me, there wasn’t too much crying but tantrums a-plenty as she kicked out so repetitively, I thought I was being mugged taking a massage in a Turkish bath.

I endured but not with any sleep, my co-passenger sympathised saying it would only be a 2-hour flight and it would all be over – almost over for the child I thought silently.

On transfer

The transfer desks in Barcelona are a mystery, you see big signs leading to Transfer Information and the it stops, you look back and you know it is somewhere in the middle.

When I finally found the desks, they were completely inconspicuous, the information desk was as good as asking for directions and being told to go North when you should be going West.

Switching from AirFrance-KLM to Air Europa was quite an insight, the service was definitely notches higher than Franco-Dutch fare, in fact, the food in comparison was the difference between cut-price dog food which needed water to reconstitute it for eating and gourmet Pedigree Chum – I woofed it all down, more or less.

It is a bit humid, I think I should saunter down to the pool and find out if my ankles are light enough for my first swim or sinking.

Akin is away

Working like a dog

Gosh! I have been working like a dog, all hours of the day and especially the witching hours to get things done before I go off on holiday.

A holiday that has been postponed for 6 weeks because my dear partner would not imitate me in one specific respect, one does not run for the train, else in this case, a trip and crack – leg in plaster for 4 weeks – thankfully, at a time the planning was still tentative.

I threatened to book a trekking holiday to see the spectacle of a hobbling tourist but relented.

At the same time, I had postponed the commencement of my thesis to allow for my holiday only to now find myself looking for an internet café in Playa del Ingles to do submissions, my recommencement having started on Tuesday.

So, my last working day came and I was still in the office at 8:30PM, took a cab home only to find that my partner had packed the whole Summer collection, like I was about to chaperone Donatella Versace in a remake of the Airport (TV series) 63 suitcases bar one at Heathrow Airport – lighten that load – we dumped 6Kg of stuff to stay in limit.

Comfort ye by payments

OK! We were traveling Comfort Class, whatever that means – extra 5Kg baggage, 8cm leg room, then, I found I was traveling a souped-up EasyJet service, we were paying for cabin service on a flight that would last 4:30 hours and the joys of noisy babies to help one relax and sleep off the whole flight. Arkefly they call themselves – never again after this holiday – but I suppose package holidays with charter flights do have their surprises.

Then, we were picked up at the airport and we had a tour of all 4/5-star hotels and apartments in Playa del Ingles before we arrived at our hotel last and just ready for dinner.

I decided on half-board accommodation with all the trimmings, the thought of looking for restaurant for 17 nights did not appeal to me and the Riu Palace Hotels brand does dish out luxurious cuisine in themed restaurants apart from the fact that company has the stomach of a child, it whines for food to my utter distraction.

We took our seats at the restaurant and checked-in afterwards, I was a bit disappointed because I thought I had an apartment-type room, but it was OK, not very large but well decorated and a balcony to boot.

Beside the seaside

I did not request a sea-side view because I felt I would get a Fawlty Towers room with the quip, the sea is just over the dunes, so I thought our orientation was towards the town though I could not see a prominent feature at that time of the night.

Later on, I found that the hotel was patently for holiday-makers, poor Internet service, no newspapers delivered to the door, I really should learn to take a holiday properly, imagine, I travelled with my laptop, well, because, I do need to make some critical submissions for my thesis.

Anyway, I woke up in the morning and looked out on the balcony, I saw the sea, yes, I saw the sea and my holiday had just begun.

Strangely, no one reads newspapers at the breakfast table, I need to, “chill-out” as they say in street parlance, I should stop counting the days left and do what I came to do – I have worked really hard, I should play doubly hard.

Ole!

Mile-high monkey takes hat seat

Fist full of monkey

One would hope that this was not for real, but the incredible is now par for the course, it really has to be astonishingly miraculous to be surprising nowadays - it is impossible to shock anyone such that ones jaw dropping to the floor can be termed a rebellious response to conserving energy and body heat.

In this age of the war against terrorism and the paralysing paranoia of running the gauntlet of airport security one would think this was a science fiction dream.

Somehow, a man travelled from Lima, Peru to LaGuardia airport in New York with a few hours stopover in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with his monkey (marmoset) pet under his hat without detection, till the animal came out for a breather during the second leg of his journey within the United States.

It would appear there was a time someone thought the swishing tail of the monkey was the man's ponytail.

Scanning voids

So much for security checks, X-Ray scanning and checked baggage, if a man could successfully go through customs checks without once having to doff his hat - it is no doubt a daring thing to do and no matter that charges are filed against the man, there was a complete lapse in checks at Peru and within the United States.

Supposedly, he was a passenger in transit in Florida and hence might not have had to go through stringent checks reserved for those entering the travel circuit from Florida, it is still amazing that no one noticed on the flight from Peru which would have been a good few hours.

A vector for terror

The greater concern however is the possibility that if this animal were a vector for some pathogenic organism, the conditions in a depressurised cabin for the hours of flight might have had the passengers in such danger graver than could be imagined - the Ebola virus or some simian-borne agent that could be so contagious and transmissible.

Seeking commonsense and comfort

Before we get ahead of ourselves, the monkey has now been handed over to the New York animal control officials and the man arrested. There is the plan to keep the monkey in quarantine for a month, but what if, the people on that flight had picked up something for which they should be in quarantine rather that walking the streets incubating secondary vectors of a disease?

Commonsense should prevail in this case, but the more serious matter here is that checks did not discover this possible terrorism opportunism and the consequences that could be too scary to narrate. Roamland Insecurity rules.

Qataris not flying by the seat of their culture

Flight delayed

Some passengers flying back from Milan's Linate airport to London Heathrow would have been seriously displeased that their flight was delayed for four hours.

This delay was not caused by the weather or some unforeseen situation rather it was caused by the clash of civilisations and the absurd behaviour of adherents of a religion that portends to be rational.

It transpired that a minor royal of the Qatari ruling family of about 3,000 princes had gone shopping in Milan with his harem of three wives and a coterie of a male relative, a cook and a another servant, seven in all. BBC Story.

When they boarded the aircraft, the ladies objected to sitting beside men they did not know.

Adaptation versus integration

Now, the Islamic Arab culture caters for the fact that ladies do have to be chaperoned by male relations, especially if they are married to , as it were keep the women pure and chaste.

But Italy and the United Kingdom are not Qatar, an international setting like the seating plan of a commercial flight cannot be subject to manipulation due to religious concerns except if the women would have wanted to be classed as children, the elderly or the handicapped - it would stretch the imagination to place any of them in those categories.

So, as these truculent "chaste" women found that the air stewards could not rearrange the flight for their convenience seeing other proximity passengers might have been couples or groups rather than lone travellers, when the plane began to taxi for take-off two of the party refused to sit down creating a safety alert situation.

Storm at take-off

The take-off was aborted and the pilot ordered the whole party off the plane, but this was not before the police and Qatari diplomats got involved in the matter.

The party eventually returned to London on an Alitalia flight later that day.

There is no doubt that this intemperate situation would cause a bit of an embarrassment for the Qatari government as something irrational as boycotting British Airways might ensue.

Uncompromising and disagreeable

However, closer to the matter here, we find a situation where a foreign culture and religious adherence refused to adapt to circumstances outside the purview of its indigenous setting, it highlights the problem of people integrating in foreign cultures something that is a hot-button issue about Islam and European societies.

The prince on seeing this situation approached the pilot's cabin to complain, a situation that could have triggered a security, if not a terrorist alert, that move was unwise.

When the cabin crew could not resolve the issue, the party could have settled down in what was a probably an inconvenient situation for a 2-hour flight, but they brought in the law and their diplomatic bigwigs without due consideration for their fellow passengers and the inconvenience they might be causing.

Thankfully, the pilot was not cowed by that embarrassment of riches or the abuse of privilege as he ordered the party off the aircraft, the captain must always be king on any aircraft under their control.

Send the bill for a bad lesson

Meanwhile, the other passengers would have had a salutary lesson in Qatari culture and even the benign influence of Islamic teaching on the ability of women to appear in public and have a quality of independence in modern societies.

As I write, I hope a humongous bill containing the extended landing charges, compensation for inconveniencing all the other passengers as well as loses pertaining to having to reschedule the flight itinerary would be wending its way to the Qatari Royal Family accountant and bank manager.

Though the sorry situation about this story is if you are going to be a prince, never be born a minor prince because this would not have happened to the prime members of the family, they would probably have private jets or charter the whole craft.