NOW THAT WE OFFICIALLY RESIDE IN THE Netherlands, my family and I returned to South Africa over the holiday season as near foreigners, more European than African you could say. If we were real foreigners it may well have been our last trip.
Yes, I know saying anything bad about the country gets you branded an unpatriotic traitor these days; I’ve been exposed to the prevailing culture of not daring to criticise. But somebody has to talk straight, and it may as well be me.
Our problems came at the two points where most people’s impressions of a trip are formed: coming in and going out.
The rental car office is the last place you’d expect trouble at an airport, but that is where it started. The “super extreme insurance cover” we’d opted for was no longer available, I was told. Neither was the lower excess rate we had chosen at the cost of a higher daily rental. The higher rental would stay, though.
Fine, nobody wants to start a holiday stressed out, so we proceeded to the half-hour task of inspecting our (expensive but under-insured) chariot. And off we went. Only to return ten minutes later.
We had barely made it onto the highway before, bang! The rubber strip around the windscreen was suddenly flapping in the wind, barely attached to the car – a car with 3 000 kilometres on the clock.
Back at the rental place, things quickly went wrong. “How could you let this happen,” was the opening gambit from the service consultant. Then I was told there was no replacement car in the class I had booked, only a lesser car at the same price or a better car at a higher rate. We drove off in a higher-class car at the original rate, eventually, but not before I quite thoroughly lost my cool. Thank you Hertz.
The holiday itself – the beaches and sunshine and mountains and family and stuff – went well. The load shedding wasn’t fun, neither was the shortage of Coke Light, but such is life.
Trying to get back home is an experience that will stay with me, though – in nightmares, for a long time.
You might have heard of the KLM flight that had to return to OR Tambo Airport because of “technical difficulties”. Trust me, you don’t know the half of it.
By the time we arrived at the airport, just after 10pm, the terminals were closed for business. Without food or retail outlets to amuse waiting passengers, the business lounge was akin to a sardine can. And just as dark, once load shedding kicked in.
“Daddy, what happens if the power goes out while we are on the runway,” my ten-year-old daughter asked. I made reassuring noises while worrying about the same thing.
There were more mundane problems, though. No working information boards to check departure time or gates, for example.
Just after midnight we made it onto the plane, only to be told there was no fixed departure time because baggage could not be loaded without working conveyer belts and conveyer belts require electricity. One and a half hours later we were in the air. An hour after that we were back on the ground – and that is where the real fun started.
It took two and a half hours to get our baggage back, because there were no baggage handlers and no working conveyer belts. I shouldn’t complain, though; we were among the forty lucky passengers who did actually regain possession of most of their bags at the first attempt.
We were also among the 19 lucky passengers to get a room at the hotel across from the terminals. Three single rooms for four people. But, hey, that didn’t seem too bad when we saw the 300 poor sods lined up for taxis (there being no buses at that time of the morning) to take them to hotels further afield.
The next day we were sent from pillar to post in search of our few missing bags – to no avail. Again we were lucky, though; we made it onto an Air France flight that night, among just ten original KLM passengers who didn’t have to spend another day waiting for a flight out. But we did have to wait an extra two hours because conveyer belts were once again on the blink.
In Amsterdam, it was straight to the baggage handling office – another bag having gone missing during the new flight. It took a week to turn up.
The worst wasn’t being in airport limbo, or being abused by ground staff. The worst was talking to fellow victims, who all had variations of the same story. “It’s a beautiful country, but I don’t want to go through this again. I don’t think I’ll be back.”
Systems and processes, guys. Don’t wait until December 2009 to get them in place. Start now. Or us Europeans won’t be back for more.
Yes, I know saying anything bad about the country gets you branded an unpatriotic traitor these days; I’ve been exposed to the prevailing culture of not daring to criticise. But somebody has to talk straight, and it may as well be me.
Our problems came at the two points where most people’s impressions of a trip are formed: coming in and going out.
The rental car office is the last place you’d expect trouble at an airport, but that is where it started. The “super extreme insurance cover” we’d opted for was no longer available, I was told. Neither was the lower excess rate we had chosen at the cost of a higher daily rental. The higher rental would stay, though.
Fine, nobody wants to start a holiday stressed out, so we proceeded to the half-hour task of inspecting our (expensive but under-insured) chariot. And off we went. Only to return ten minutes later.
We had barely made it onto the highway before, bang! The rubber strip around the windscreen was suddenly flapping in the wind, barely attached to the car – a car with 3 000 kilometres on the clock.
Back at the rental place, things quickly went wrong. “How could you let this happen,” was the opening gambit from the service consultant. Then I was told there was no replacement car in the class I had booked, only a lesser car at the same price or a better car at a higher rate. We drove off in a higher-class car at the original rate, eventually, but not before I quite thoroughly lost my cool. Thank you Hertz.
The holiday itself – the beaches and sunshine and mountains and family and stuff – went well. The load shedding wasn’t fun, neither was the shortage of Coke Light, but such is life.
Trying to get back home is an experience that will stay with me, though – in nightmares, for a long time.
You might have heard of the KLM flight that had to return to OR Tambo Airport because of “technical difficulties”. Trust me, you don’t know the half of it.
By the time we arrived at the airport, just after 10pm, the terminals were closed for business. Without food or retail outlets to amuse waiting passengers, the business lounge was akin to a sardine can. And just as dark, once load shedding kicked in.
“Daddy, what happens if the power goes out while we are on the runway,” my ten-year-old daughter asked. I made reassuring noises while worrying about the same thing.
There were more mundane problems, though. No working information boards to check departure time or gates, for example.
Just after midnight we made it onto the plane, only to be told there was no fixed departure time because baggage could not be loaded without working conveyer belts and conveyer belts require electricity. One and a half hours later we were in the air. An hour after that we were back on the ground – and that is where the real fun started.
It took two and a half hours to get our baggage back, because there were no baggage handlers and no working conveyer belts. I shouldn’t complain, though; we were among the forty lucky passengers who did actually regain possession of most of their bags at the first attempt.
We were also among the 19 lucky passengers to get a room at the hotel across from the terminals. Three single rooms for four people. But, hey, that didn’t seem too bad when we saw the 300 poor sods lined up for taxis (there being no buses at that time of the morning) to take them to hotels further afield.
The next day we were sent from pillar to post in search of our few missing bags – to no avail. Again we were lucky, though; we made it onto an Air France flight that night, among just ten original KLM passengers who didn’t have to spend another day waiting for a flight out. But we did have to wait an extra two hours because conveyer belts were once again on the blink.
In Amsterdam, it was straight to the baggage handling office – another bag having gone missing during the new flight. It took a week to turn up.
The worst wasn’t being in airport limbo, or being abused by ground staff. The worst was talking to fellow victims, who all had variations of the same story. “It’s a beautiful country, but I don’t want to go through this again. I don’t think I’ll be back.”
Systems and processes, guys. Don’t wait until December 2009 to get them in place. Start now. Or us Europeans won’t be back for more.
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