A comical and satirical reflection
of Nigeria Air Transport.
It was a bright and sunny day as
most Sundays are. I had barely managed to secure my booking online for the
“Best” airline in the country to fly from Lagos to Abuja. I had gone for a
weekend meeting in Lagos with a team from my office and I was trying my damnest
best to return to Abuja early so I can prepare to resume work on Monday.
It was to be a 9am flight and i had
my friends leave the house at 6:30am so they can beat any of the incessant
traffic associated with a typical day in Lagos. They dropped me off at the
airport at 8:15am and I gave myself a generous pat on the shoulder convinced
that I would be airborne in an hour.
I did the necessary check-in ritual
and practically jogged into the plane. I sent a message to my friends to
arrange for pick up and settled in to wait for when the pilot will announce
readiness to take off. Before long, 30minutes had passed. Just then the
passenger sitting beside me noticed the air was hazy and somewhat smoky inside
the airplane. He called an air hostess and complained and she escaped into the
pilot cockpit to report the matter. 30 minutes later, the pilot informed us
that there seems to be a slight problem and they were expecting some expert
engineers to come check the plane out to assure us of its air worthiness. We
sat put for another hour while they tinkered.
At that time my dear Yoruba
brothers and sisters began to panic and you could hear the “ngbati” talks as
they alighted from the plane. After a while the rather brusque sounding pilot
came out to inform us that someone had contacted his superiors about the issue.
However, he assures us that the haziness was not a threat to the flight so
those willing to travel should please remain put and all those who felt their
lives weren’t safe should please alight and take their luggage. Before long he
came to inform us again that he had been ordered to return the plane to the
hangar and he had put in a request for another plane.
Those of us remaining in the plane
alighted and proceeded to the departure lounge to wait while they prepped the
new plane. At the departure lounge I sat beside a well adorned woman with gold
jewelry all over her body. She was bragging to those of us sitting close to her
how she had called an Oga at the top to report the incidence, so it was obvious
it was her intervention that got us special consideration.
The second plane was prepped
and we proceeded to board. After a couple of minutes again the same pilot
returned to inform us that the new plane was not air worthy at all and in his
opinion we should have taken the first plane as it was. See me see wahala oo,
as though our lives weren’t important to us? Please, I’ve got a momma who would
shit bricks if anything bad happened to me so I led a heavy tongue lashing at
the pilot for his gruffness and insensitivity. We disembarked and returned
again to the departure lounge.
At that time half of the passengers
had ditched the flight, picked their luggage and left the airport. I couldn’t
afford to forfeit the flight money because I had spent heavily to book a last
minute flight and yes, it would dent my account if I had to repay.
By this time it was 3pm and just
then we were called upon to board a third airplane. The plane was scheduled to
fly the Lagos-Port Harcourt route, but had been set on a rescue mission and had
been re-routed to take us (the remaining passengers) to Abuja.
It was past lunch time (I don’t
joke with my food, mind you), and most of us had begun to get cranky. Just then a jaded hostess and an air host
arrived with a stiff conciliatory smile, giving out some refreshment to a
knackered crop of passengers while we gobbled up the minute offerings. At the
end of it all, as compensations went, we were handed three muffins and a cup of
juice. How demeaning! But as Nigerians, we were quick to forgive them and just
thank God that we had arrived safely. After all as they say, ‘when there is
life there is hope’ abi?
No comments:
Post a Comment