Akwaaba
Ahhhh – Ghana
You know you back in Ghana when you driving on the wrong side of the road, and you still have cars that understand.
I cannot believe how bad SAA have got over the last few months. Bar the fact I was on the flight from hell which goes via Abidjan as opposed direct to Accra – additional 2 hours without a ciggy you understand – but the flight leaves at 14h55 as opposed to 17h10.
Arrive at JHB International – formally Jan Smuts – now O J Tambo International at 12h45 and attempt to check in. Why do the boards bother with stating “SAA CHECK IN – Counters 1 – 33” when only 5 counters of the 33 are actually manned? I can never quite understand that concept.
Obviously going up to Ghana we have a good few items going up to site. Five of us gives 150kg. We have 182kg. Convince the nice person at weigh in that I have a silver card, which means we are only 22kg over weight and really that’s only just over 4kg a person so it is not that much. Finally we just put one lad through twice and the poor confused lass believes we are within our weight limit.
Twiddle thumbs in queue for 40 mins before you realise that no-one is actually checking any body in. I kid you not. There were some 80 people in the queue and not one person checking any one in. After some muttering and getting a tad frustrated when Lufthansa open up (using SAA Check in – welcome to Star Alliance) and quite happily skip the 80 people in the line and start a new queue, I went through to find someone to complain to.
SAA are nice – the “team leader” wears a red jacket. At least you know how to find someone to kak on. Happily ask the team leader why no-one is been checked in and am met with the “It is Shift Change” response.
Now hit me over the head with a used SAA ticket. One would assume that shift change does not entail Shift A going home and 30 minutes later, Shift B arriving. Apparently with SAA this is exactly what happened. So for some 30 mins you can stand in the queue and stare at the departure board update.
When I happily pointed out that for the last 30 mins no-one had been checked in, his very glib response was “Why are you complaining – you have only been in the queue for 30 minutes”. Given that response, I knew I was on a hiding to nothing.
Finally we get people drifting in to start the check in process. As luck would have it the poor lad that checked us in was employed from the street that afternoon and thrust in front of the computer. It took 40 minutes to check five of us in. I lie not. I marked the time. He was eventually assisted by a pregnant lass to get us seats as well as our 11 pieces of luggage tagged.
Oh yes – they were not fooled by the additional person and I was forced to go back and pay for the excess baggage. Once again an exercise in frustration. There are 5 counters with people at them. (this by the way was heading towards 13h30) but as SAA would have it, only 2 people were actually receiving clients. One nice old lady wandered up to a lady sitting at an open counter and was sent back as “There is a shift change happening”.
When I was finally served I chirped the lad “Are you guys in wage negotiations again?” His blank “I should be working at the post office” stare meant that I was required to elaborate. “Everyone it so slow today – shift change is a bugger”. His glib response was “Well then you should not check in when there is a shift change”
Erm. Excuse me fuckhead! I did not ask for the flight to leave at 3pm. Your fucking company did.
Of course there was a wonderful sign up “NEW CHECK IN SYSTEM – Effective November 2006”. Aha – why then did they just not tell us all
“Dear Passenger,
Because the old check in system was starting to work well, we have been forced to design a new check in system that will once again frustrate you. Please bear with us while we learn to stuff up our shift change, find people who have never seen a computer before to check you in and generally assist you to brush up on your swearing by having surly supervision that has no idea what customer service is all about.
We thank you for choosing SAA, but as we are the only airline flying to your destination due to us having the ability to block the competition, you cannot use another airline even if you wanted to.
Have a nice day”
That said – I started and finished my book on the flight, was served 3 meals of chicken and got to Accra airport craving a ciggy. Fortunately I had other people with me so when my bag arrived on the turntable, I picked it up and asked Martin to please get the other bags as I want a ciggy now!
The Hamatan is in full swing, and it was a barmy 26 degrees with visibility less that 200 meters. You can almost taste the sand from the desert as it flies over the coast forming hurricanes in the Indian Ocean so the Americans can have some natural disaster to put on CNN.
Uneventful drive to site – Satellite system not working (Surprise Surprise) and a 2 hour walk around site to catch up on what has happened while I was away.
Akwaaba!!
You know you back in Ghana when you driving on the wrong side of the road, and you still have cars that understand.
I cannot believe how bad SAA have got over the last few months. Bar the fact I was on the flight from hell which goes via Abidjan as opposed direct to Accra – additional 2 hours without a ciggy you understand – but the flight leaves at 14h55 as opposed to 17h10.
Arrive at JHB International – formally Jan Smuts – now O J Tambo International at 12h45 and attempt to check in. Why do the boards bother with stating “SAA CHECK IN – Counters 1 – 33” when only 5 counters of the 33 are actually manned? I can never quite understand that concept.
Obviously going up to Ghana we have a good few items going up to site. Five of us gives 150kg. We have 182kg. Convince the nice person at weigh in that I have a silver card, which means we are only 22kg over weight and really that’s only just over 4kg a person so it is not that much. Finally we just put one lad through twice and the poor confused lass believes we are within our weight limit.
Twiddle thumbs in queue for 40 mins before you realise that no-one is actually checking any body in. I kid you not. There were some 80 people in the queue and not one person checking any one in. After some muttering and getting a tad frustrated when Lufthansa open up (using SAA Check in – welcome to Star Alliance) and quite happily skip the 80 people in the line and start a new queue, I went through to find someone to complain to.
SAA are nice – the “team leader” wears a red jacket. At least you know how to find someone to kak on. Happily ask the team leader why no-one is been checked in and am met with the “It is Shift Change” response.
Now hit me over the head with a used SAA ticket. One would assume that shift change does not entail Shift A going home and 30 minutes later, Shift B arriving. Apparently with SAA this is exactly what happened. So for some 30 mins you can stand in the queue and stare at the departure board update.
When I happily pointed out that for the last 30 mins no-one had been checked in, his very glib response was “Why are you complaining – you have only been in the queue for 30 minutes”. Given that response, I knew I was on a hiding to nothing.
Finally we get people drifting in to start the check in process. As luck would have it the poor lad that checked us in was employed from the street that afternoon and thrust in front of the computer. It took 40 minutes to check five of us in. I lie not. I marked the time. He was eventually assisted by a pregnant lass to get us seats as well as our 11 pieces of luggage tagged.
Oh yes – they were not fooled by the additional person and I was forced to go back and pay for the excess baggage. Once again an exercise in frustration. There are 5 counters with people at them. (this by the way was heading towards 13h30) but as SAA would have it, only 2 people were actually receiving clients. One nice old lady wandered up to a lady sitting at an open counter and was sent back as “There is a shift change happening”.
When I was finally served I chirped the lad “Are you guys in wage negotiations again?” His blank “I should be working at the post office” stare meant that I was required to elaborate. “Everyone it so slow today – shift change is a bugger”. His glib response was “Well then you should not check in when there is a shift change”
Erm. Excuse me fuckhead! I did not ask for the flight to leave at 3pm. Your fucking company did.
Of course there was a wonderful sign up “NEW CHECK IN SYSTEM – Effective November 2006”. Aha – why then did they just not tell us all
“Dear Passenger,
Because the old check in system was starting to work well, we have been forced to design a new check in system that will once again frustrate you. Please bear with us while we learn to stuff up our shift change, find people who have never seen a computer before to check you in and generally assist you to brush up on your swearing by having surly supervision that has no idea what customer service is all about.
We thank you for choosing SAA, but as we are the only airline flying to your destination due to us having the ability to block the competition, you cannot use another airline even if you wanted to.
Have a nice day”
That said – I started and finished my book on the flight, was served 3 meals of chicken and got to Accra airport craving a ciggy. Fortunately I had other people with me so when my bag arrived on the turntable, I picked it up and asked Martin to please get the other bags as I want a ciggy now!
The Hamatan is in full swing, and it was a barmy 26 degrees with visibility less that 200 meters. You can almost taste the sand from the desert as it flies over the coast forming hurricanes in the Indian Ocean so the Americans can have some natural disaster to put on CNN.
Uneventful drive to site – Satellite system not working (Surprise Surprise) and a 2 hour walk around site to catch up on what has happened while I was away.
Akwaaba!!
1 Comments:
ah yes, you didn't get the notice SAA sent out, via encrypted email to select customers. Their new slogan is "We suck but don't swallow - More fun with less satisfaction"
So, let me get this right. You leave at 14:55, if the plane is on time and the staff didn't miss their taxi, which is 2 hours and 15 minutes earlier than the next flight. Then the flight goes via Abidjan, which adds 2 hours to the flight time. Right.... ;)
There is a worse airport than O R Thambo. It's Charles de Gaulle. 4 Planes land, one passport control counter open for foreigners.
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