Condor bird

Monday morning. As usual I am at the airport to welcome the new guests. They all got out of the plain and are on a bus, except for one lady who is missing her luggage. But after I while she also gets on the bus and I am about to leave (9:00) when the responsible of Condor calls me: the plane cannot leave, upon take off in Mombasa a bird has flown in one of the motors and now the plane must be repaired. It will take a couple of hours, so all guests must go back to the hotels they come from.

As I know the Condor-man doesn’t speak German and I also know he is a bit lazy, I decide to stay at the airport to assist him. Otherwise, once back in Germany, the people will complain: there was noooooooooooooooo rep and there was noooooooooooooooo information.
I wish I had never done so!!!


It took about an hour to get the airport pass to get into the airport, to the departure hall. I follow the Condor-man and explain the people what happened and that they will have to go back to the hotel but that they have to wait a bit.
Than I wanted to go to the plane to inform the 95 passengers that departed in Mombasa. But they don’t allow me to go to the plane.
So I wait in the departure hall with about 110 passengers.



In the meantime it was clear that the plane would not leave the same day, so it means a delay of 24 hours.
The Condor-man had gone to the immigration office: as also the passengers from Mombasa will have to stay for 24 hrs in Zanzibar, they need to pay the entry visa. They don’t need to pay themselves, it will be paid by Condor. But Immigration wants cash money, no bank transfer or cheque. And of course the Condor-man cannot find in a short way about 3000 USD. And negotiating takes time.

The passengers have checked in at 8:00 and the plane landed with 95 passengers at 8:00. Only at 11:00 a first group – the Thomas Cook package guests – can leave the airport. And from this moment many things go wrong. The Condor-man cannot organise; he already asked me if I knew some hotels where we can send the passengers to. And he also cannot count…


I had 56 guests who were to go back to the Neptune hotel, he wanted to put them on 2 minibuses of 24 seats each. So when 8 of them are still waiting for a “seat”, Condor-man realises he needs another solution. All passengers get out of the minibuses and get onto a huge coach.  One group is ready to leave. Fortunately I had my departure list, otherwise nobody would have ever known who and how many people had already left.
Then the people from Mombasa came out: they all have to go to the Karafuu hotel. Except for the guests who have booked Business class or premium economy. 3 minibuses are filled… and they can leave. Filled? I don’t really know: nobody had counted them and I am sure that some seats were still available.
Than the crew comes out of the airport, they all go on another minibuss to the Serena Inn hotel, a city hotel in Stone Town.

Than another mini-bus is filled with Business class & Premium economy class guests, they also go to Serena inn.

At the end there are 30 people remaining… yes, I had noticed some people were missing: the once who were still waiting in the departure hall.  So they also are taken out.
The 2 mini-buses from Serena had to come back, to pick them up and bring them to Karafuu.


At 13:00 all passengers are on the way to or arrived in a hotel.  And I receive a phone call from Neptune, the hotel where my guests have gone back to: Condor-man just had forgotten to call them to book the rooms. And the hotel will not allow them before they received a written confirmation Condor will pay for this overnight.

According to Condor-man, the flight will leave with a delay of exactly 24 hrs, so guests need to be picked at 6:00 am.

I go to our office and around 14:30 I walk to the Serena Inn hotel to see if everything is ok.  I still find 16 guests of whom 3 little children waiting at the reception. Condor-man just had send some guests to Serena Inn without counting them and without considering the available rooms.
So the guests who have booked Business Class now were brought to a 3* hotel somewhere else in Stone Town.

In the afternoon I call Condor-man just to check again on the departure time, but I can’t reach him. Also my colleague Hamisi cant reach him and even not his own staff. So I just accept it will be 9:00 tomorrow.

This means wake up call at 5:00, breakfast at 5:30 and departure at 6:00 as normal.
But at 4:30 Condor-man calls me: why did you change the pick up times??
me: I didn’t change any pick-up time and you could not be reached the whole afternoon yesterday.
His battery was empty…
“Guests must leave at 5:00 because the flight already goes at 8:00…”
I jump out of my bed, call all the rooms to ask to come down immediately without having breakfast as the plane will leave one hour earlier.
At 5:30 they are all gone, I run to the restaurant to inform that they can cancel the breakfast. I walk back to my room to get a shower and have a nap when suddenly my phone rings: there has been a mistake. The plane is not leaving at 8:00 am but at 8:00 pm.  Suddenly I had the feeling my knees were from rubber.

I run down again to the restaurant: please don’t cancel the breakfast, the guests are coming back. To the reception: please don’t clear the rooms, the guests are coming back.
At 6:15 they are all back: some of them could have lynched me, although I was not responsible at all for this situation. But they don’t understand this…

Fortunately at 10:00 I had to leave to continue the jobs I couldn’t do on Monday. Like talking with the woman who’s suitcase didn’t arrive. She was crying that she wanted to go home, as what could she do here without her clothes. I tried to comfort her: your suitcase will be here in 2 days… But she didn’t want to believe it.

In the afternoon I need to go to Karafuu. And there I meet the approx 130 guests that were waiting to go home. Also some of them were angry with me. And asking questions I couldn’t answer: is our connection flight booked? Is my train ticket still valid? Is?... I don’t know!

This hotel has served diner at 18:00 so they could leave at 19:00 as in the mean time the departure flight had changed again. I asked some guests to send me an SMS after they had checked in, so I could be sure they were leaving.
Around 22:30 two messages: we are on the plain.
I fell asleep immediately.

I t took 2 days though before all the stress had gone…