On advice from the team from our local office I arrived 3 hours before takeoff. On this particular trip while flying business class on the long-haul flights I had not qualified for a business class ticket on the 1 hour flight I would be going on. Price wise it had however not mattered so the travel-unit had kindly booked me in the higher class.
Little did I know that this move would end up saving me either one week in mission time or a lot of money as it happened.
Standing in in the cue-line as the 2nd passenger to arrive to the airport I was just soaking in the athmosphere at the airport. While small, it was a busy place, with people shouting across the whole departure areas as there seemed no need to go close to a person to talk to them.
I looked around and all the doors to the check-in was closed with no presence of anything than guards giving away a sense that something should start soon.
There was a solid fence and a locked cage type door which would have to be passed with the normal x-ray before even checking in the luggage. Me and a colleague from another UN agency sat there waiting.
The flight we were both booked on was a large 747 which was doing a run from Paris, via Niamey to Ndjamena then with a continuation straight to Paris again.
While waiting we started to notice that one of the conveyor belt doors for the luggage was open into what seemed the back office of the check in area.
We saw no Air Afrique staff but we started seeing a number of normal people just enter through the hole and it they came out with boarding passes !? We could not see if it was for our flight or another one but it was just giving me a strange feeling. After seeing this practice on several occasions I asked my driver if we should not also go in there and just get our boarding pass… nononono he said.It was not for our flight we should just wait in line.
Seeing an endless line of people entering the small hole was quite comical but it kept giving me an uneasy feeling.
Once the actual door opened and the Air Afrique manager came out he simply explained in french that the flight was full and we could go home!?
Hmmm…that is not exactly what I had in mind… neither my colleague. Together with our respective drivers we started and seemingly endless discussion about getting a seat.. Mind you we had both reconfirmed our tickets 72 hours before as we knew we had to..
the manager was adamant, the flight was full and that was the end of story as far as he was concerned. Then suddenly he noted that my ticket was a business class ticket while my colleagues was an economy.
He took both tickets and disappeared for about 10 minutes only to return with a boarding pass for me in first class. My colleague was simply informed that there was no seat. the same was again reiterated to all the people behind us in the cue-line. The majority of these people had also re-confirmed their ticket. I was quickly whisked through the security and in to the lounge area.
While sitting waiting almost an hour my colleague finally made it in to the lounge… He was not very happy. He had been refused with no chance on getting the flight and had basically been forced to buy an alternative ticket.. Chad – Niamey via PARIS!!! As he was the main presenter at a meeting in Niamey the next day, with participants having flown from 10 different countries just for him, he had no other option.
We parted way and I went over to the Immigrations officer to get my passport stamped. The immigration officer asked me for my visa paper. I said the visa is in the UN passport as we could both see. nonono he says there was a paper I was given on arrival in two copies of which I needed one… If I did not have that I would have to pay a fee….. Hmm what fee? I had asked the office staff if there was anything needed and they had told me no. nothing.
hmm… We argued for about 10 minutes and then he let me through without stamping my passport…hmmm…
On arrival at the gate there was still time so we all had to wait. Once we started boarding, again immigration was there wanting to see the passports. Once they saw mine of course there was discussion and they asked me to step aside… everyone else boarded and they still held on to my passport asking for the paper and in connection with that ..some money to solve the problem… Being stubborn as I am I figured if they really stop me and make me miss the plane there will be a record of an event that would lead to more problem for them than me so I managed to keep my cool. Even though not understanding half of what they said as it was in french made it a bit difficult.
Finally the purser came out asking what was going on and somehow managed to convince the immigrations guys that it was not a very good solution to retain me to miss the flight and they gave in. Once more I was on my way.
Mind you last time I was in Dakar I saw about 10 Air Afrique planes on the ground seemingly with no way to get in the air again as the company went bankrupt…. wonder why?!