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Flight changes throw all plans up in the air

Thursday January 15 2015
DNEbola1808r

A hurried traveller at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. PHOTO | BILLY MUTAI |

I was excited to travel for the first time on Ethiopian Airlines.

My flight was to Cairo from Nairobi, via Addis Ababa. The connecting flight was scheduled for 9pm. However, take-off from Nairobi was delayed by 30 minutes, making me half an hour late for my connection from Addis to Cairo.

The flight to Bole International Airport in Addis was smooth. At 10.45pm, people were already lining up to board the flight to Cairo. Ten minutes later, we were told that the flight had been delayed until 11.30pm.

I met one of my colleagues at Bole; he had come from Uganda. We chose to wait at the boarding gate instead of going back to the lounge for a few minutes then back through the tedious security checks.

At 11.30pm, we boarded the plane but waited for almost an hour without any explanation. An hour later another lot of passengers streamed in, the safety precautions announcements were done, and the pilot announced that we were going to pass through Khartoum to drop off the passengers who had just boarded.

This was not how the flight had been scheduled.

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About an hour later, we landed in Khartoum. The new lot of passengers got off, and a few minutes later we took off to Cairo. We landed in Cairo at 5am, instead of 2am.

After going through the swift immigration clearance at the airport, my colleague and I were received by our host who proceeded to help us collect our baggage. After waiting for 40 minutes, my bag was nowhere to be seen. Everyone else, including my colleague, had their bags.

“It was not transferred to the connecting flight from Addis,” said our host, who is Egyptian.

“This kind of thing is very common with this airline, so we have to report it.”

I filled my claim form for the baggage loss as I worried about having no clothes for the two days I was to be in Cairo.

We were in the city on the invitation of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On learning about my missing luggage, they asked the airline to transfer my bag to Cairo as soon as it was found. They informed me that my bag would be on the next flight, meaning it would arrive on my last day in the country.

One of the female organisers of the trip gave me some clothes to wear, so I had enough for my stay.

My flight back to Nairobi was at 2am, so we had to be at the airport by 11pm. There was no queue at the check-in counter, but I had to get my bag back and check it in again. It took the airline staff an hour and a half to get the bag from the store. I was tired and didn’t have time to rest at the lounge as I had to rush though immigration and then on to the boarding gate.

The gate indicated on the boarding pass and the screen were not the same. The pass said we were to board at gate seven, but the screen showed that it had been changed to gate three; again, no announcement was made. Because of the confusion caused, the flight was delayed for 30 minutes before take-off.

So instead of landing in Addis at 7am for my connection to Nairobi at 8am, we landed at 7.30am and I missed my flight. We were informed that we were going to leave on the 10am flight instead.

I decided to go to the lounge and have breakfast and rest before 10am. However, a few minutes later the airline staff came round calling for the Nairobi passengers, saying that it was boarding time and the plane was taking off at 9am. But on the screens it was reading 10.15am.

After passing through the security checks, I noticed that some of the people heading to Nairobi were seated and not aware of the change in boarding time.

I passed on the information and we went to the gate together. We found the plane ready for take-off. I was relieved, when we landed in Nairobi, to find my bag had arrived as well.

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