AEROCONTRACTORS
It’s always good to do something and do it well. Also, it is good to do what fate and destiny has predesigned you to do.
Aerocontractors was obviously not destined to doing the airline business. From their operation, their fleet of airplanes, the flying services and all…..they are more destined to be into the kabu-kabu business…or the second hand undergarments sales business.
Their abysmal services were further made gigantically glowing by the fact that I just boarded the Aerocontractors flight as a connecting flight. I was previously on board an Emirate flight. The Almighty Emirates. They never disappoint you.
Back to Aerocontractors.
The flight came in one hour late, no apologies.
The plane sounded like its engine was occasionally used to blend pepper and sew clothes. The plane was definitely not new. Definitely. It looked like it was assembled in a phone repair shop. The entry door showed signs of recent gaudy repainting. And from the look of the paint job, it wasn’t sprayed; it was painted by a house painter, with hand.
The entry floor too strongly indicated that either 6 billion people with two legs each had passed through those doors or 3 billion animals with 4 legs each. It had obviously accommodated like 12billion feet within the last one year. The plane was obviously old. I’m pretty certain the plane is older than my mum’s grandmum. The seats were tattered .Even the crew looked fatigued like they had been pushing the plane .I’m almost certain the plane didn’t start earlier on because the plane had kickstarter problem….and the crew had to push the plane. Thank God the plane was using manual gear not automatic, jumpstarting would have been impossible.
I was ushered in by this old airhostess that obviously was in her early fifties .The makeup she applied actually worked and made her look like she was in her late forties instead. The ease with which she moved around indicated that she had obviously been working as an air hostess for a while, she probably was one of the people that welcomed JFKennedy into Nigeria in 1952. Whatever happened to the traditional habit of using pretty fertile,virile, young women as airhostesses?….most airlines automatically disqualify an airhostess if it looks like she marched on the independence day of Nigeria in 1960. This Air hostess was probably a teacher during the independence celebration in 1960.
There was another male air host .He was dark, tall and wore tight fitting white shirt that showed very angry biceps and all. He looked like an unrepentant rapist.
As I was walking to my Economy seat, I noticed that the Business Class seats were empty and the formerly leather chairs looked like someone once considered turning them to suya. They look scorched and cracked. There were ‘stretch marks’ looking lightning strike marks all over the business class chairs as if ‘THOR’ or ‘Shango’ had used the seats for target practice.
As I sat down on my seat,I noticed that the red cross bar on the ‘no smoking sign’ was faded giving the impression that the ‘no smoking’ sign was a ‘smoking allowed’ sign. The seats all over the economy class looked like they had been used by Moses in moving the Israelites.The looked old and used.
The seat I sat on even had the permanent butt-cheek marks on them. The side light by the window too looked dull like an eye with Cataract .Obviously, the plastic casing was weak. At least the airline should have taken those plastics to the Igbo boys at Ladipo. It cost N320 each.
After what seemed like forever,with people coming in and all. I started smellin something foul. I initially thought the nice lady with her kid beside me had farted or something. This was until I heard people from way way way back saying hmmmm,hmmm. Apparently the smell was from the airconditioning. This reminds me of a university friend of mine who ,while we were in the university, once said that he had discovered some people that claimed that they could help him fill his car airconditioner gas for N500. At that time, I was filling my own AC gas for N2,500. He later went to fill his own AC.I didn’t see the guy nor his car for the next one month.I later heard from another friend that anytime he switched on his AC ,there was a foul foul foul smell for the first 10 minutes because the ingenious N500 guys used a mixture of cooking gas and something else sha.
Aerocontractors probably used the N 500 guys too.
The Captain, Captain Omiaghor announced that we were taking off. The plane finally started taxing.
As it was taxing, being a night flight, I noticed that the sign on one of the engines on the right wing which was visible from my window seat that obvious was a safety warning supposedly reading ‘CAUTION…..DO NOT STAY NEAR’ had faded too. It now read ‘UTION….DO NOT STAY NEAR’. I instantly figured that Aerocontractors paid for the aircraft installmentally, hence they hadn’t fully purchased all the safety warnings supposed to be on the plane.
After 10 minutes, I checked the pocket of the front seat to get something to read .I saw a ‘menu list’…with prices. The woman beside me, seeing my surprised face started laughing. Apparently, Aerocontractors now sells food on their flights. If I had boarded an airline called ‘ Mr Biggs Helicopters’ , I would not have minded if they sold food on an international flight. There was meatpie, chicken pie, sandwich and sausages for sale There were also drinks for sale.Coke,fanta,beers,malt drinks and all.
I think this is a despicable cheap-ass cheap-skate stunt.Why not bill the passengers an additional N 1000 to cater for the food?
I just couldn’t help but ask the woman beside me if the air waiters (air hosts don’t sell food) would shout ‘buy meat pie…ice water tutu re’ while hawking the food around. She was still laughing when the male air waiter finally brought his ‘selling counter’ towards us. I asked him why an international airline sold food on an international flight. I also informed me that I just got down from another international flight and they didn’t sell food. He instantly told me that they sold food because they were not as ‘big’ as Emirates and so they were ‘managing things’. I didn’t bother asking the guy more questions as he started smiling like a rapist again.
The woman beside asked the rapist air waiter for a meatpie and he said all food had ‘finished’. Yeah,it was a one hour international flight between Accra and Nigeria but why would food finish? The rapist further explained that there was no food because other people that boarded the flight earlier on had finished all the food. I asked the rapist if the plane was also flying the Somalia route,that’s the only country that I know could have soo many citizens that would eat all the food on board a plane. The rapist smiled again,like he was calculating my anal size. I stopped smiling. I then asked him what he had in his counter since everything was finished.He said he had just water. Once again, I asked him if the plane was also expecting to pick passengers from Sahara desert..or why does an international flight have only water on board. Na wa o. The guy started smiling again. I stopped smiling and said ‘thank you,you may leave now’.
Apparently, the woman and the kid beside me were from Somalia. The kid started crying as soon as he heard there was no food on board ,only water. I looked at the woman and the kid with compassion in my eyes and I did the right thing to do. I brought out my sling bag from under the chair, dipped my hands in my bag and brought out my earphones.I connected them to my phone,shut my eyes and listened to Ebenezer Obey….bi won se rin siwaju die..won pade adamo…eda omo araye….!
It was funny looking at the small kid distort his face, wasn’t sure if he was crying or he was speaking zulu. Afte the second verse of the Obey song, the kid’s eyes started producing water too. I figured the zulu language contained some vowels that were peppery to the eyes,hence the watery eyes by the boy.
The mother too started speaking zulu to the rapist waiter. He just smiled back. I then closed my eyes and thought about the color of shirt to wear the next day.
Woke up when I felt a bump. I guess the plane had landed. The landing was pretty smooth . The plane taxied…and taxied….and taxied…..and taxied. After what seemed like 15 mintues,I started suspecting that the pilot was just driving around to confirm if he had landed us in lagos airport or enugu airport. Or maybe he was looking for parking space.Or maybe he was looking for a perfect place to park on a slope,so that it would make it easier to jumpstart the plane the next morning.
Finally, the plane stopped.
We all got down and then I did a mental waka to the Aerocontractors and their services. And i just keep wondering, Aerocontractors, what are they contracting?