If I were at home at this moment, there is no question that I would be the angriest man in Grahamstown. But I’m not. I’m in Port Elizabeth, which Idols judge Gareth Cliff recently described as the armpit of South Africa.
I don’t care much for Gareth, but in this case he has a point. PE doesn’t have much going for it. If PE is the armpit of South Africa, then the airport, which is where I am, is the country’s backside. It’s dark and smelly. (I did warn you that I was angry, didn’t I?)
I’m on my way to Johannesburg to attend a workshop on investigative journalism.
I’m meant to check in at 5pm, but being slightly neurotic I arrive at 3.30pm. I’d washed my Jo’burg pants (they’re specially camouflaged to blend into the urban jungle) in Grahamstown and I had left before they had had time to dry. They are going mouldy in my bag.
Unfortunately, the British Airways plane that I am booked on has been delayed by three-and-a-half hours. The BA official explains that take-off is scheduled for 9.30pm. There has been a technical fault with the plane and they have to find another aircraft.
“You’ve got all our cellphone numbers, so why didn’t you phone us and tell us to come later?” I ask.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” she shrugs unapologetically.
“I could have spent the afternoon with my family. I would have had time to dry my pants.”
She shrugs again. “Next.”
There’s not a helluva lot to do at Port Elizabeth airport. I decide to explore the terminal; an appropriate word for this particular airport building. After 30 minutes, though, I know the airport’s nooks and crannies intimately. In fact, if I were a contestant on the TV quiz show Mastermind, I could choose “PE airport” as my speciality subject.
4.30pm. Five hours to go. I listen to the droning airport announcements made between cheesy elevator music. “Your attention please, drivers of illegally parked vehicles in drop-off zones are kindly requested to move their cars immediately … Your attention please, as required by the smoking legislation … thank you … Your attention please, unattended bags will be disposed of. Thank you …. Your attention please … thank you.”
The messages blend into each other: “Your attention please, all bags must not smoke their lighters in drop-off zones. Unattended drivers will be disposed of. Thank you.”
The announcements are on a never-ending loop. It’s like Chinese water torture — after about two hours your skin starts to itch and your nose begins to bleed. Slowly, but very surely, you go mad.
5.30pm. Four hours to go. Wrong. The plane has been delayed by another 40 minutes. We’ll only be leaving at 10.10pm. “Sorry for the inconvenience,” says an official who doesn’t look very sorry.
To compensate us for the delay, BA gives each passenger a R35 meal voucher. I decide to hang out at the coffee shop. “Give me a decaf coffee … and keep it coming,” I tell the waiter.
10pm and five cups of “decaf” coffee later, I realise that I’m suffering from the jitters. I ask the waiter for the bill, but I’m slurring my words. “A-a-a-a-re y-y-you s-s-ssure you gave me d-d-de-de-caf?” I ask.
“Er, decaf? Oh shucks, I mean, of course,” the waiter says. I can’t help notice that he looks guilty.
10.10pm. Time to board. Wrong again. The people who are supposed to refuel the plane have gone home. The passengers, suffering from terminal rage, are getting restless. The fact that most of them have been knocking back bottomless “decaf” coffees all evening isn’t helping.
At 11.35pm — more than seven hours after I’d arrived at PE airport — we are finally on the plane. An hour-and-a-half later, Jo’burg’s golden lights come into view. We hit the tarmac with a crashbangscreechbump.
I thank the pilot as I get off the plane and ask him: “Did we land or were we shot down?”
How frighteningly familiar this sounds. Some weeks back I rushed from the Digital Citizen Indaba in Grahamstown to PE, worrying I might be late to check in … I need not have worried, as my SAA flight was delayed by three hours. Not quite seven, but I also had the scintillating experience of passing the time in the little hovel that is PE airport on a Sunday evening. The R35 meal voucher didn’t quite make up for the mental anguish.
I like. Next time you should take the train from Alicedale. It’d be quicker. xxx
i absolutely understand your anger. That is ridiculous and our airports, especially P.E airport, needs a wake up call!
being a Rhodes student and living in Durban, I am forced to sit in the painfully boring PE airport often and on more than one occasion my flights have been delayed! I can relate so eaisly to your article, the anger and knowing every corner of the place! Brilliant article!
I fully understand your anger, the service in South Africa with regards to airlines is shocking. Everyone should boycott the airlines and take up walking again, a few weeks hiking is good for you!
But seriously, at some point some really angry person is going to take out his/her frustration on the airport, they had better shape up before then…
Personally I find PE airport to be a tranquil oasis of calm compared to Cape Town, where there’s too many poeple, too little parking, too little oxygen and never enough time for a nice cup of “decaf” beofore you board. Viva la fiendly city- mother needs to open some windows in terminal 19 or risks violating some serious health codes!
That is ridiculous of PE airport,i fully understand your anger.What you can do now is to try to take the train for the next trip you will be having so that you can avoid the incident again.
Port Elizabeth is not having a good service to serve people having serious trip or workshop to attend just like Jonathan because, it is not organised they are running out of people who were supposed to refuel the plane before it depart there were at home so they were needed to organise others to refuel the plane while others were gone home.
I know exactly what you’re talking about. I was delayed at the Durban airport on a flight to Cape Town. The airport staff absolutely refused to tell the passengers what was going on, it was chaos. some of the passengers were getting a little edgy and when they told us what the problem was (a little fire out one of the engines… “nothing to worry about etc”), there was a new, much smaller plane getting ready to take us to Cape Town. and i can tell you it was a snuggly ride.
Just to add, i have a quiet hatred for the PE airport, having spent 5 hours there with nothing constructive to do except sit on those cold, hard benches against the walls and watch all the other ‘anti-PE’ passengers go by.
Despite what was obviously a seeringly painful experience I couldn’t help but laugh my way through your article. Each stage of your seven hour ordeal was all too familliar! Lets hope that our airports manage to get things right before 2010, if they don’t such disasters await the greater popultaion as well as our tourism industry. For future reference I highly recomend the smoothies at the House of Coffee’s. Experience has taught me that it is very much harder to get one of these wrong, defintately the choice of the more cautious!
About a year ago whilst touring overseas I was waiting for a flight which as yours, was delayed by 6 hours. However, unlike in your case, in my state of frustration this delay made me think, and so… I make a valid point – a point to ponder.
Those 6 hours…
Those 6 hours of waiting for a plane and being irritable beyond belief are 6 hours of a child or family dying of starvation. It is 6 hours of one thousand odd rand which a large family could live off for a substantial amount of time, and so, 6 hours of somebody somewhere being a whole deal worse off than you.
Maybe I am reading into it too much, but it makes you think does it not? Are 6 hours of waiting for a flight and being given coffee (even if not the kind you required at the time) really worth moaning about?
What a brilliantly hilariously written article!! I used to think it a pain of always having to drive the 9 hour trip back to PMB but now I’m grateful I don’t have to deal with the incompetence of the airlines…
Airports are horrible but you can’t live without them and the “wonderful” service they provide. I guess it something you just have to grin and bear with. Hopefully the PE airport will be expanded by 2010.
Dear Mr Ancer
It’s amazing how different the world becomes when leaving behind the peaceful and mostly tranquil city of saints, sinners and students before heading to the “urban jungles” of pulsating streets, traffic lights and camouflage clothing. Where the non-stop throbbing of traffic is enough to make you wish you were stuck behind the familiar donkey-drawn carts that occasionally create for us here the illusion of “rush-hour” traffic, and where getting a “de-caf” has never been easier. I agree that spending unaccounted for time in any airport is enough to drive any sane person mad – especially when the view is limited to the rather large lady eating yet another piece of dry, stale cake from the only coffee shop to adorn this sorry state of affairs. Yet, for all the inconveniences of the Port Elizabeth airport I guess a few hours spent contemplating the idiosyncrasies of life in a world caught up in the rhythms of alarms clocks, deadlines and schedules would be time well spent.
The airport blues! I had a similiar experience during the December holidays in 2006 when i took my first plane trip. Yes, i was definetly a newbie to being 1000 metres up in the air! On my flight to Cape Town and on the way back home to Durban, our plane flight was delayed about two hours! Luckily for us (i travelled with my best friend and her family), kulula was ever so gracious and gave us R400 discount on both accounts, for our next flights.
I am no longer new to this whole business of flying being a student at Rhodes University in Grahamstown…i actually enjoy the bumpy take-offs and landings, which seem to happen every time! I think sometime we are all too quick to get angry and throw our toys out of the proverbial cot.
And all it does is screw up our day and we’ll probably end up making some old lady cry because of our self-induced bad mood! As cliched as it is (my english teacher would give me a slap on the wrist for using it), life is definetly too short to waste it getting up tight on such trivial issues!
I love this article or blog whatever it’s called. I travel from Grahamstown to Joburg during vac and I always end up “hanging out” at the airport for hours and there is absolutely nothing to do. I cant believe I’m saying this but I think I understand why those airline ladies are such…. if I had to spend all day in PE airport I too would be a … What’s even worse though is the airport in East London. I don’t even know if I can call it an air port, room is much more fitting. I swear i think my Res at Rhodes is bigger than both terminals put together no jokes.
It’s one thing being stuck quietly in a small airport/hovel, quite another being lost in a huge and busy one. I have developed an absolute phobia of Heathrow airport since having to walk no less than 3 hours to get to my gate. Quite rushed, quite confused and very lost somehow doesn’t seem a good alternative to bored and knowing where you’re going. I sympathize with your intimate knowledge of PE airport, rather to count tiles in your little padded cell!
Airports, while undoubtedly being a necessary entity, have a knack for inspiring rage and anger! i too have spent many an hour (usually 5 hours at a time) wasting time away at PE airport awaiting a flight. The best thing to do is just grin and bear it while indulging in many cups of coffee and reading the day’s newspaper(or newspapers, depending on how much time you have to waste, I mean wait!)
For the fear of being accused of being unpatriotic, your story is a typical reflection of why South Africa is viewed in a negative light by many foreigners. This country is desperately attempting to shed its “third-world” status, however this will never occur until something is done to improve our transport systems. The powers that be need to remember that tourists – those who provide the country with her greatest revenue – experience our airports before anything else. And if this story is anything to judge by, their opinions of South Africa will be far from positive.
Dear Mr Ancer
I can relate with your frustration completely as I have had a similar experience myself. Just recently i was travelling home to Durban after term ended at Rhodes University. I, like yourself, had clothes that were bearly dry, shoved into my bag and had got myself in a bit of a panic as i seemd to be running late and was worried i would miss my plane. As you well know, a trip on an Airplane, for someone living in Grahmstown, is not as easy as a quick trip down the road to the local airport. It requires a 1 and a half hour journey to Port Elizbeth, whose airport is most probably a little bigger than my res. At least my res has television and friends to keep you busy…the PE airport has nothing but a small coffee shop, a sweets from heaven, a couple of chairs and an ATM.
I arrived there just in time to check in..or so i thought. My plane had been delayed. It’s bad enoughing having to queue in the never ending lines to check in your bags, never mind waiting there for 5hours with nothing to do or no familiar face to talk to.
Luckily i had my fully charged laptop and a couple of unwatched series to keep me occupied for a few hours. This is not the first time I’ve been delayed at an airport, but at least at Heathrow or in New York there are things to do.
Mr Ancer
I totally understand your anger. PE airport is the most doge airport in the country.I mean the service is bad as our department of Home Affairs.Next time you wanna go to Joburg, I suggest you book a bus, in that way you won’t have to deal with those spiteful people.
Oh PE airport!!I have had some of my most testing moments at that airport. Well, i’m not an angry person, so it takes a lot to make me tick. The service at PE airport is one of the few things in my life that have made smoke shoot from my ears.
At the end of last term when i got to PE airport, they had made a mess of my bookings. That was still fine because it was nothing that could have not been fixed in 2min. But no! I was bounced around like a tennis ball from the teller to the manager to the manager who knew more, until i missed my flight and all they could say, in their robotic voices, was, “oh! we are so sorry for the inconvenience, there was actually nothing wrong with the ticket.”
Mr Ancer,
I think that you have captured the atmosphere of the PE Airport perfectly, especially the Chinese water torture announcements (which plagued me for 2 and a half hours once). As a Rhodes student who lives quite a lengthy way away, I have experienced the airport on numerous occasions (as well as the excellent variety of attractions it offers) and have found it wanting on all of said occasions. Now that I’m moving to a town closer to Grahamstown, I’m relieved to be rid of the hassles of airports and the aforementioned airport staff… Thank you for the hilarious spin though! Will keep it in mind on my next trip!
Being a student at Rhodes and living in Cape Town I have spent long hours in the Port Elizabeth airport starring into nothingness waiting for a plane that has been delayed for far to long. It is enough to drive people insane. My idea of flying every term has been shattered by the poor performance of the Port Elizabeth airport. If it is not a delay in Port Elizabeth it is the wrestling through the crowds at the Cape Town airport. Is there any hope for better?
So true, so true. The worst I have experienced is being loaded into a Virgin Atlantic aeroplane; a 12 hour flight, and then being abruptly unloaded back into the teeny tiny boarding room where all the passengers had to wait sitting cross-legged on top of each other on the floor for over two hours until the crew figured out what had gone wrong(one of the smoke detectors in the loos, for Pete’s sake!). We eventualy were allowed back in, with numb bums and extensive pins and needles, and as we all got up, a little girl who had been lying near to me cried “Daddy, I need the toilet!” After two hours of doing nothing!!! Suffice it to say that broke the tension rather well. Until the plane took off and all the in-flight entertainment screens flickered and died. So 12 hours with no entertainment, and no lights to read by. That was fun.
As a Grahamstown local (born and bred) I’ve always had an inherent dislike of Port Elizabeth – it really is the armpit of South Africa, like a mini-Joburg, only uglier.
My experiences of the PE airport have only until recently been confined to wishing friends and family farewell and making a beeline for the door as soon as they turn towards the security check. Luckily for me, when I was the one leaving for a change, I didn’t have to deal with the psychological trauma of sitting there for an indefinate period of time as you described. I was on the plane to Cape Town before I even knew it.
The Cape Town airport on the other hand was awful. Being the proverbial “country bumpkin” that I am, I detest large crowds and not knowing where I am. In the airport there were people crammed into every corner of the terminal, signs redirecting passengers at every turn (due to all the renovations they’re doing over there)and me looking like a deer caught in the headlights.
The flight was delayed, but luckily I managed to find some familiar Rhodes faces to complain with – just like the seasoned traveller that I’m not. It was only then that I felt like I’d truly had a proper “airport experience”. I would have been somewhat concerned if things had gone completely smoothly – I would have begun questioning whether or not I was still in South Africa and hadn’t boarded an international flight by mistake.
There really is nothing like a bad airport experience to make us truly appreciate the joys of Grahamstown and our airfield – which is frequented more by locals walking their dogs than any form of aircraft…
I feel your pain, Jonathan! I have dealt with almost every Airport in South-Africa, and the Port Elizabeth Airport is indeed the Backside of South-African Airports. Aside from usually having to deal with my mother as a travelling buddy, (God bless her) who tends to turn into a paranoid android while travelling, slow service and insincere apologies really only serves to add salt to the existing wounds of the South African transport service. Some revolution must surely be at hand. I giggle nervously at the prospect of what travellers might experience when the Soccer World Cup hits home. My only words of comfort (maybe) would be, that at least you didn’t have to wait at the Windhoek Airport in Namibia for 9 hours…A process I have had the pleasure of experiencing.
I think most of us can relate to airport related incidents, especially Rhodes students, many of whom are frequent fliers. PE Airport is terribly boring. I have often been delayed there and it is so small one could easily begin to feel claustrophobic! However, it is not just PE that has these problems; airports all over the country are screwing up flights and wasting peoples’ time, often with little explanation… Flying is supposed to be quick and hassle free!! With delays like that one however, its efficiency can be called into question!
PE Airport – such a bad reflection for any city to have. Does it not bother the citizens of Port Elizabeth that as soon as tourists or business clients arrive at this airport, that their first impressions may not be good ones. The delays, the terrible smell in the air..etc. But wait! The bad experiences don’t stop at the airport. While returning back home via PE Airport, we made the mistake of hiring a taxi from there, which broke down outside Alexandria for three hours, just our luck, in a place with no signal!!! As you can imagine, this is one memory that I would not like to keep in my holiday album!
I know how you feel, the P.E airport is most definitely the bane of my all my travels to and from Grahamstown, not that I travel much. As a Rhodes student, this airport is one of the most frustrating places on the planet and all you want to do is get out of it. The so-called help isn’t very helpful and it gets very small and dark very quickly in there. I think they try to keep you P.E for as long as they possibly can before someone has a coronary or tries to fly a plane out themselves. Having been delayed in the P.E airport on more than one occasion I can definitely relate to this and can only hope that my next trip to the airport isn’t quite as frustrating.
The joys, oh the joys of public transport in South Africa…
I fully understand your frustration. On friday night I missed my dinner, after stuffing a bag with half tumble-dried clothing to catch the bus that was supposed to leave Grahamstown at 7.30. By 10.30 all hopes of getting to Cape Town on time for my uncle’s funeral had vanished.
Upon my arrival in Cape Town, there was a mad rush to make it to St. Helena Bay in an hour and a half, amidst my luggage getting lost (ON A BUS!?). I missed breakfast .
Then after a weekend of trying to catch up on lost sleep I spent monday evening waiting for my bus and tuesday morning stressing about whether I was going to make it back to Grahamstown in time for my History Tutorial that would be the determining factor on whether I would be allowed to write my exam or not…
An optimistic view on the lack of organisation in S.A.’s public transport might allow us to meet some friendly people (albeit in frustrated state) and force us to slow the much too hectic pace of modern life down a little, but is this optimism really going to carry us through 2010?
I agree fully! Some might think you over reacting but i see only truth in what you have written. The service at PE airport is anything but satisfactory, plane delays only make the situation worse. The customers are treated like street kids and you could swear we are not paying for the service that we are given. Something needs to be done.
I know exactly how you feel!!! I travel a lot and airports are starting to annoy me. I hate the waiting, esp. when you’re early and your flight gets delayed. It’s very frustrating. The freuqent airport announcements don’t help the situation. Argh, it gets to me evey time, esp. when the staff doesn’t give a damn.
Port Elizabeth has to be one of the ugliest places in South Africa, which is relatively easy as there’s not much competition, one can only empathise to Mr. Ancer’s frustration as i’m sure many Rhodes students will, and have.
This is a brilliant little piece of writing by one of Grahamstown’s very own sons. It’s refreshing to know that the big editors and chiefs sitting behind “The Desk” are people too. They may be responsible for selecting and rationing our daily news consumption, but behind all the power lurks individuals faced with the same every day problems as the rest of the population. Poor service and airlines go hand in hand; in fact i’m pretty sure if one read the fine print one would find that poor service is a central concept in the mission statement. “SAA – We’ll try our best to give your ticket away”. Being a not-so-avid fan of the greyhound I’ve been considering taking a plane back to Jo’burg. From what I’ve just read though it sounds like it’s not worth the effort. It costs more and the quality in service doesn’t exactly increase exponentially. I have travelled overseas however and we as South Africans can take pride in the fact that at leas we’re not the only airline to offer such poor service. Your seven hour wait does not sound like it was fun, but at least it wasn’t 6 hours in a foreign airport, with no meal vouchers, and after the first 12 hours of 2-leg 22 hour flight.
The glories of South Africa air travel have never ceased to amaze me, having never had one flight take off in time in the whole of my traveling experience. It’s good to hear someone put down in such well written words what most, if not all travelers feel about the state of South African air travel. And what better place for the story to be situated than in the ultimate in travel incompetence, Port Elizabeth.
Grahamstown should develop its airport.
With an ANC municipality though, we may as well plan a trip to the moon.