6)
This one was purely the hand work of mischievous MAS colleague Oliver. Now
there are some passengers who barely know what flight they’re boarding,
generally old people. And even some young people oh. You ask a passenger, “sir,
which flight?” He or she looks stunned. He/she stares at the passport first,
“Eh, the 2.00 PM flight.” “Is that the name of a flight?” he/she rechecks
again, this time at his flight ticket, “Eh, em, Ethiooo-pian airlines.” “Okay,
this way.”
Now bring mischievous Oliver into flight name ignorance and you’ll
get a masterpiece of flight name confusion. Do you want to know what I mean?
Right. Oliver’s recipe of sending a passenger into flight name confusion is
simple. He combines two flights, simple, period. Kenya Airways and Air France.
Here comes the passenger towards Oliver who asks, “Sir, which flight?” Passenger
looks at passport first, then says “errrrrrr” before he goes to the flight
ticket to check. Oliver quickly understands he’s one of the ones mentioned
above and asks the passenger,
“Sir,
Kenya Air France?” passenger stops, looks at him dumbfounded and stammers in
confusion. “Yes. No. Yes. No. wait, which flight did you say?”
“Are
you flying on Kenya Air France?”
“No.
Yes wait….” his face showing utmost confusion, he scrutinizes his flight ticket
again while Oliver screams,
“Young
man, are you flying on Kenya Air France?” colleagues watching Oliver almost
collapse in laughter.
“I
am flying on a Kenya flight but not passing through Air France, sir.”
“Okay,
this way,” Oliver ushers him towards the Kenya Airways queue and makes a face
at laughing colleagues.
5)
This one happened in 2012 when the defunct Air Nigeria used to land here. The
airline was facing serious managerial crisis in those its last days. As a
result, it broke all the rules of aviation and operated like a bus agency. I
swear even Garanti Bus Express operated better than them. So it is no surprise
that they used to have constant wild flight delays of seven, eight and even
nine hours (without the Air Nigeria staff informing passengers oh!) And it was
always we, the Swissport crew taking all the insults and heat. We were seldom informed
when the plane would land either. So when passengers asked us about arrival
time, we sometimes disappeared. (The Air Nigeria staff knew how to disappear
very well. They checked in passengers and vamoosed from the airport like
ghosts, abandoning the angry passengers). On one of such long delayed flights,
passengers at the boarding gate had tormented my colleague Valery and I at
midnight to the point of total exhaustion. When Valery finally caught sight of
the approaching plane a few hours later, he pulled out his walky-talky and
announced with his hoarse voice,
“Bad
luck Air Nigeria on the ground. Bad luck Air Nigeria on the ground.” I paused,
looked at my colleague Shirley and we unanimously burst into laughter
forgetting all the hunger and exhaustion.
4)
The next one was narrated to me by my colleague Rosaline. She was at the
boarding gate one day searching carry-on luggage when a female passenger walked
towards her with her carry-on. Rosaline wore plastic gloves which she used to
search the carry-on luggage. When the passenger saw her, she guessed Rosaline
was probably a nurse or a doctor. So the passenger placed her bag on the ground
and lay flat on the search table, spreading out her legs and arms for Doctor
Rosaline to operate her belly before she could board the plane. Rosa suppressed
a laugh and told her to get up and place her bag on the table so that she could
search it instead.
3)
I was at the baggage sorting area during an Arik air flight registering all the
checked-in bags. As the bags rolled down the belt, I noticed that there was a
lot of noise from one of them. When I put my right ear next to the bag, I heard
some wonderful Ivorian Couper decaler music. Uh? As the bag passed through the
X-ray machine, the bag handler who carried it to the Arik air trolley started
dancing to the bag’s music. I grinned and pulled out my radio.
“Boarding
gate for Container!”
“Go
ahead for gate”
“Sequence
22 has to come down to the baggage sorting area.”
“Why?
Has it been withheld by the Customs?”
“Not
the Customs. His bag is singing.”
“What?
What do you mean by ‘his bag is singing’.”
“Sequence
22 has to come down and turn off the music playing from his bag. If not this
place would turn into a nightclub.”
“Copied,
Container.”
When
the gentleman descended and opened the bag, we discovered that he had left his
radio set on. So the device had entertained us with a good dose of DJ Arafat.
Mpangor!
*On
a certain Swiss Air flight in 2011, my colleagues had discovered a bag which
was vibrating. Scared that it may be an explosive they almost ran away. When
they called down the passenger, they discovered that, he had left on his
battery powered shaving machine after usage, put it into his bag and drove to
the airport. As a result, his bag kept fidgeting and moaning, vrrrr, vrrrri,
vrii, vrrrr, vrrrrrm.
2)
Some months ago, I met a white American man at the arrival hall whose shirt was
soaked to the point that it looked like someone had pelted a pail of water on
him, sweat glands at the maximum with expulsion, his right arm clinging to a
handkerchief wiping furiously at his forehead. When our eyes met, he went, “you
know I’m from Minnesota where it’s minus forty degrees.” I replied, “Welcome to
Douala where it’s plus thirty degrees, The oppressive heat at this airport
bites at the human skin like it has teeth.” (No air conditioning then.) The man
shook his head in disappointment.
1)
My top funny moment happened on Kenya Airways. A male passenger had arrived
very late at the check in counter when check in had ended and all the check-in
agents had left. So he asked around what he had to do to get on that flight because
“it is so important, I have to travel today oh my God. I cannot miss this
flight…” bla bla bla (As if you didn’t know all that when you arrived late!) He
was directed to the Kenya Airways office anyway. But there was nothing the KQ
staff could do because all the check in agents had left and the check-in system
had already shut down. The man pleaded but Therese was steadfast,
“Sir,
it is not possible for you to fly today. However, there is another flight
tomorrow. You will pay the penalty for your “no show” and we will….” The man
cut the KQ staff, Therese short and chipped in intelligently,
“But
I showed up! I showed up at your office ten minutes ago. I showed up. How can
you say I am “no show” and I did not show up, uh?” Therese smiled.
“Sir,
if you don’t check in during the normal check in time and check-in ends, you
are considered a “no show passenger” and…”
“I
said I showed up eh! Did I not show up at your office? (passenger points at my
colleague Peter) Young man have I not shown up at the Kenya office? Uh?”
“You
were supposed to show up at the counter and on time, not at our office when the
counter is closed and boarding is almost through at the gate. I’m sorry, you
will only fly…”
“I
showed up ooooh, madame, I showed up. Please board me. I showed up!”
