Well we are on the plane (mom and I) and I must commend BA for their excellent service. Thankfully I had the wisdom to board the flight early. So we got to our seats and attempted to store our carry on luggage. Now, point to note 'if one gets to ones seat, on a relatively empty plane and there is already luggage in ones overhead bin and no one is sitting next to them, it's a sign of things to come....' Luggage stored away, seat belts fastened and the other passengers are boarding the plane. Everything seems to be normal...... But very soon we begin to realise that for the number of persons on board the flight and the corresponding number of carry-on luggage was increasing and increasing. It was as though each person came with no less than four baggages..... so of course over head bins became very scarce. Pretty soon there was major reconfigurations and transfers of luggage from one bin to the next, from over head compartments to under seats, things falling on passenger's heads, traffic pile up, angry passengers waiting in the aisle, flight attendent asking people to clear the aisles.... COMMOTION needless to say... At this point I took my que to put on my eye patch, because clearly I did not want to be a witness to any assault that might have taken place.
Have you ever been on a flight that is about to take off, I mean already moving on the runway and over head bins are still open and cannot even close!!!!!!!!!!!!! HUMMMPPPP
The plane is ready for take off, begun to taxi, the pilot has made his announcements, seat belt sign on and over head bins are OPEN, ram cram, cannot close. Can you imagine................. and the most amazing thing is that the poor flight attendent cannot find any owners for the luggage. The woman is now moving up and down the aisles asking, "who are the owners of these bags?" and there are no takers. Not a man blink on the plane........ At that point all I could do is PRAY... because that was a first for me. As soon as she moved, someone eagerly jumped out their seat and removed one of the bags from the over head compartment, placed it on an empty seat and closed the bin, like if nothing happened. So now when she returns she becomes even more agitated....... "who are the owner of this bag?" and of course there are no takers........ At that point eye patch went back on and I begun to focus on the arriving safely in Abuja, because I had a six hour and fifteen minute flight ahead of me and clearly I was in for a rough night.
Now I am no fan of travelling, particularly on long flights, so my remedy is to take a gravol, which puts to right to sleep and sleep from beginning to end. Of course that will be facilitated by a nice orderly flight and one would think that at 11pm people will be eager to get some rest for the day ahead of them. Not the case when travelling to Africa. It was like a village reunion. People moving back and forth, cross talk, constant movement. You can imagine my state of confusion, added to which the gentleman sitting next to me, was constantly elbowing me and the gentleman behind me kneeing me all night long... I repeat, ALL NITE.... at no time did he stop..... I was so confused, what did I do to deserve this.
Dinner time comes around, like 1am in the morning... now what are they thinking!!!!!!!! and by the time the flight attendent gets to us, there is a little issue. The option is chicken or beef, however, there is no more chicken. NO CHICKEN I SAY...... Now, a word to the wise and more so to the Flight Crew. In a situation like that, it would have been better if they had just said we are serving only beef tonight, don't even mention the chicken. I say that because the gentleman next to me decided to take them to task, because he paid lots of money for his air fare and was tired of this sort of disrespectful treatment. BA always does this sort of nonesense and he goes on and on, holding up the dinner serve for more than 10 minutes. WHY ME!!!!!! Needless to say that he had the beef and ate it all up......
Words of advice when travelling over the sub-sahara region, drink lots of water and ensure you are well hydrated, because travelling over the desert somehow drains you. Half way through the flight and you feel dry, parched and thirsty. In addition, walk with lots of on-flight entertainment, like an MP3 player, crossword, sudoku, laptop, anything.... Anything that will keep you focused and take your mind away from all that might be going on around. And do say lots of prays.......
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