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Phil’s Travels – Cairo, Egypt (11.24)

Phil’s Travels – Cairo, Egypt (11.24)

As with most African airlines, it was not possible to check-in online. So, I left home at 06.00 on Sunday morning to give me time in case of an issue at the airport. Our local Tube station was closed at that time, so I walked the five minutes through Storm Bert (no rain or snow fortunately, just very blowy) to Paddington. The streets were pretty empty at that hour and Paddington was a morgue. Not a soul to be seen until I got to the Heathrow Express machines, where a ghostly Express chappie advised there would be no trains in or out of Paddington of any variety until 11.30. Network Rail was partaking of its favourite Sabath pastime – Sunday engineering works. This meant no Express, no Elizabeth, no Bakerloo (hence our closed station) and no other Tubes (why did not the Express site advise of this when I checked times the night before?). What to do? No choice. I had to grab a black cab and hot-wheel it to Heathrow in the hope that T2 would not be suffering from its habitual check-in chaos.

Storm Bert, unlike its namesake of Sesame Street fame (Bert of Bert & Ernie), was billed as this super, multi-event, killer storm of the decade. In London we got a few puffs and a couple of drops only and was certainly not the fearsome Bert predicted by the weathermen. If anything, my walk to Paddington was positively balmy. Much warmer than previous days of 3C. Elsewhere across the UK and Ireland though, Bert was definitely not the warm and fuzzy Bert of Bert & Ernie – at least five people died and all sorts of roads and rails were closed across the nation. Outside of London’s protective microclimate, Bert was more like a mean and nasty Grinch.

With curtailed train services, the vehicle queue into Heathrow Central’s tunnel was long and we crawled (no hot-wheeling in sight) through it to T2. The Egyptair counters were empty. I was the only person there. Check-in folk advised the flight was not busy, but that Business Class was full and they took longer trying to find a seat for me than it took for me to get from home to T2. 

Security was quick and I entered the most tedious terminal in the world with a heavy feeling of ‘now what?’. To be fair, T2 has been somewhat energised with a new wine venue. However, despite my passion for the heavenly ambrosia of the grape, even I could not face such a refreshment/breakfast at 07.30. Nor could I face Heston’s inappropriately named Perfectionists’ Café’s slippery concoctions. Instead, I went to Jones the Grocer for Classic Benny (aka Eggs Benedict). Ignoring the overcooked asparagus contaminating the dish (maybe Benny likes stalks with his eggs), the classic Benedict ingredients scored quite well, 6/10, with a bonus point for some zing in the Hollandaise (a rare thing these days).

As the early morning wore on, the boards started to fill with messages of ‘Cancelled’ and ‘Delayed’. Except for my Cairo flight, which showed as ‘Please wait’ until three minutes before take-off time, 09.37 and 09.40 respectively. Thus, at 09.37 ‘Please wait’ changed to ‘Delayed until 10.35’. At 09.40, ‘Go to Gate A18’ popped up and all of a sudden the airport wanted us to mobilise toute suite. I strolled the 30 seconds from tedious waiting area to interesting gate and sat with a great view of the landing runway. At 09.45, the boards showing Cairo at Gate A18 cleared and an airport bod advised that our aircraft still had not arrived due to Bert and so further delay likely. Timing unknown.

As early morning became mid-morning and I watched plane after plane land on the southern runway, a very delicate and slow-motion ballet, as the pilots wobbled, dipped and yawed with Bert. At around 10.30, we were told the plane had tried to land but abandoned its approach and was heading to Gatwick instead. None of the airport bods could advise as to why. Would the same plane come back to Heathrow? Would we need to catch the 14.00 later that day? No info forthcoming. Of all the carriers I watched land that morning, the much maligned (especially by me) BA flights appeared to be the most competent and confident in the stormy conditions. Perhaps Egyptair should consider an advanced driving course for its pilots with BA.

Our 09.40 Cairo became ‘Please wait’ again and remained so for the next three hours. At 12.48 the Cairo-Please-Wait became a ‘Delayed To 14.00’ flight, with ‘Gate Shown 12.50’. It looked as though they would merge us with the imminent 14.00, assuming of course the 14.00 pilot was more confident and capable than the 09.40 pilot (now in Gatwick and do doubt enjoying a slap-up lunch and a snooze).

At 12.50, ‘Go to gate A16’ showed and off I strolled the 20 seconds to A16. A minute later I saw our baby-sized plane pull up at the jet-bridge. So far so good but I still did not know if this was our own 09.40 plane or if we were to be merged with the 14.00 and thus have to change seats. Again, no info forthcoming. 

Cairo-Please-Wait finally boarded at 13.45 and took off at 14.30. I sat in 8A, which in Egyptian means seat 1A. Lovely to be in the Hotseat, but no room to put my stuff with me. Our plane turned out to be the 09.40 and not the 14.00, and I was grateful we had a new pilot. Bert was still blowing mid-afternoon and I could feel his gusts as the plane shivered and shook on stand, and took off at a funny angle. At 30,000 feet though all was smooth and Bert left far behind.

On approach into Cairo, we literally flew around the pyramids. The view from my Hotseat was extraordinary.

Our approaching flight was harassed by a barrage of green lasers pointing at us from all over the city. It was my second mega city in as many months and clearly a good number of Cairo’s 20m inhabitants were pretty bored (no such harassment at Istanbul last month).

I avoided the long visa queue thanks to the heavenly Safwat from Hilton but could not avoid the massive passport melee. I had a long wait in prospect, so, I caught up with BBC news and read about the Egyptian King inspiring another Red Men victory. Go Mo! After 30 minutes or so of passport queue agony, Safwat came and rescued me again, with a friend who stamps passports, and escorted me through security and customs and out to the hotel shuttle.

The hotel was standard large-scale airport stuff. The room service Fatoush was great, but the burger (as always with this brand) was lousy. In the morning, the sun was up and my bedroom window overlooked a garden area, through which strolled a peacock infestation. Amazing what you get to see on Phil’s Travels.

Our meeting with the bank was very positive and encouraging, and we debriefed over pizza back at the hotel. The waiters and Maitre d’ were fabulous and entertained my addiction with joy and curiosity (although only 3 out of the 9 came off).

At 06.00 following morning, I had just laid my behind into a cab when the porter asked me to step out again and sign something at reception. The receptionist told me I had $20 still to pay on my room account, despite the fact that our lovely client had spent over an hour the evening before (post-pizza) tortuously paying for all six of our rooms and expenses. I was not happy. Not just because of my delay, but mostly because our lovely client had wasted so much time the evening before suffering endless incompetence and inefficiency. I told the receptionist that I hoped the hotel’s ineptitude would not extend to either (i) charging my card for the full $450 blocked on it at check-in or (ii) double charging the $20 to both me and our lovely client. It was a good job the lobby had few guests in it that early in the morning and the staff were all very sheepish as I departed in a major huff.

As suspected, there were queues galore at Cairo Airport (hence my frustration at leaving the hotel late). There were multiple huge queues for the first luggage scan at T3 – a veritable den of snakes. There were just too many passengers, with too many bags and not enough scanners or staff. A nice luggage lugger asked me if I was flying Business and he directed me to the hidden Fast Track area at the back of building and hidden round a blind corner. But even here, the queue was long and slow. Same story at the check-in counters, too few operating for the volume of demand. Result? Another lengthy queue. Having passed through these airports often in the past, I had allowed myself three hours to complete airport procedures. It was looking like I would need all 360 minutes. 

In a country of 120m and a city of 20m, how can such an airport be so chronically understaffed? Frustrations grew so heated that at one point a group of men seemingly dodged our queue with three trolleys piled high with plastic wrapped luggage and a scuffle broke out as an elderly man in our queue stepped through the Tensa Barrier, walked up to the youngest and grabbed him by the throat. Thankfully the situation de-escalated quickly and the disgruntled elderly chap went back to queuing. Inexplicably the dodgers remained in position. I have no idea how it ended as I was checked-in shortly after the kerfuffle ended and I moved on quickly to the next queue – passport control. Here I found myself standing behind a pistol-toting 7-year old. The passport checker chappie seemed happy enough to let him pass with his plastic replica and no shutters came crashing down to delay me further. I am not sure such an item would be treated in such a laisse faire manner at Heathrow.

In duty free, (another lengthy queue) the cashier’s credit card machine was not working and they did not have any cash change. Solution? The equivalent of my change was paid to me in chocolate bars and peanuts.

Our plane for the return was a much bigger affair (a B777 v a A320 on the way out). Thankfully I was not in the front row. It was a beautiful morning and the sun bathed me in its warm light as I snoozed for 50 minutes. I snoozed so long I had not realised the time. It was 30 minutes past our scheduled take-off time. We were delayed and yet no one gave us any info, again. EGME men kept walking up and down the aisles, but no one said anything. Some 70 minutes after take-off time we were told to disembark – there was a faulty wire somewhere and it needed to be fixed without us. Boeing? Technical issue? Surely not. Back in the gate I tried to communicate with folks back in Blighty, but the airport wifi only worked for three minutes. The place was creaking at its electronic seams.

Having been fed like a herd of sheep (the airport organised a trolley loaded with huge boxes of biscuits and juice, and they left it to the masses to fight over the goodies, just like a farmer dumping bales of hay in a field), we re-boarded some 30 minutes later and took off two hours late.

Thanks to the return delay and because I had a meeting in Mayfair at 16.30, I did not go home as planned. I did not drop off my luggage, as planned, and I did not have a refreshing shower, as planned, Instead, I took the Piccadilly Line directly to Hyde Park Corner, stood in the cold on a call for 15 minutes, conducted the site inspection, chatted with the agents, enjoyed a glass of wine with our client and took the Number 6 Bus home – all with my luggage in tow.

My lasting disappointment from this trip? The delays, the electronic issues, the huge queues, the disorganisation and the hotel reception incompetence were all aspects I could live with and put down to the vagaries of travel. No. My biggest disappointment of the whole trip? No sign of Mo anywhere in Cairo. Long live the King! And be sure to sign that contract soon.