Recently, Nancy and I made an emergency trip back to Zimbabwe. Needing to be there as soon as possible, the closest direct route was out of New York, into Nairobi – Kenya, down to Zimbabwe.
Airline of choice was Kenya Airways. It was interesting. While we are not airline aficionados, some of what we experienced was comment worthy. Once aboard, looking out the window I was alarmed to see duct tape on the wing! I know there are different grades of tape, and so there wasn’t a real sense of concern, however, no one else seemed to mention anything apart from one other passenger. Flying over the ocean at 35,000 feet at 650 mph gave me a new respect for the strength of adhesive tape, holding parts of the panels on an aircraft wing together. The long-haul Boeing 787-8 fleet is aging, and could do with a facelift on the inside. Needless to say, we arrived safely in Nairobi. Kenya Airways are certainly trying to elevate the standard of air travel out of Africa, however, there is certainly room for improvement. The flight into Harare was awesome. We left on time, had a decent meal, and the inflight service was really good.
The return flight from Harare into Nairobi left on time, was a smooth and pleasant flight. Our 787-8 was parked at the gate for most of the afternoon, into the night, and so we were looking forward to an on time departure out of Africa into New York. That wasn’t to be. We boarded, and sat, and waited. An hour went by, and then another hour. Reason for the delayed departure: the ground crew had not filled the potable water supply (remember the plane had been sitting at the gate for at least 9 hours). We took off, 2.5hrs late. We were still enroute to New York, realizing our connecting flight was already on the way to Denver – and so this put an already weary damper on the return trip.
We do wish the airline well, and hope that in time to come, the service level and equipment upkeep receives some much needed attention, as this is after all a brand that states “The Pride of Africa”.