I have been through many airports in the world, and during this covid time I reflected on them as there were many remarkable incidents happened in the airport. Airport is a place where passengers come face to face with people of authority. If the passenger responds carelessly, he can miss his flight or even worse be detained in the airport. Yes, airports are places where one’s patience is tested as one needs to queue up a number of times till you are seated in your designated seat in the aircraft.
I had a vivid experience with old Lagos International airport. In my earlier blog, I have mentioned about the monumental inefficiency of the Nigerian postal and communication system, and there was practically no means of effective communication between India and Nigeria in 1970s for a person living in a village. When I returned to Nigeria after my marriage in 1977, I could not take my wife with me to Nigeria, because she did not have a Nigerian visa. I sent her the ticket advice, and with her father she went to Air India Cochin, India. In those days, we needed to go to Cochin for arranging international travel. As such Air India staff were very arrogant.
When I first left for Nigeria in August 1976, one Mr.Tharakan, a senior Air India official , collected my Indian passport to be sent to the Nigerian High Commission, Delhi for visa. When I asked him to issue a receipt, he retorted, “you have to trust your travel agent” and he did not give one! However I advised my father in law to see Mr.Tharakan to get the ticket and visa arranged for my wife to come to Nigeria. My father in law handed over my wife’s passport to Mr.Tharakan who promised to get the visa within two weeks. Normally, the passport was required to be sent to Nigerian High Commission, Delhi to get it stamped and returned back.
They booked flights for a month later and arranged to collect the passport with visa stamped on their way to the airport from Trichur (then), India. My father in law had contacted Mr.Tharakan a few days prior to the departure date to make sure that Mr.Tharakan had received it. But Mr.Tharakan trivialised the matter and reassured my father in law that everything would be in order, without checking. My wife bid good bye to her friends and relatives and packed her bags for the long journey to Nigeria. My parents as well as my wife’s family went to Cochin to see her off.
Meanwhile I received a letter informing me of the arrival date of my wife at Lagos airport. I was excited, and took a few days off to go to meet her at Lagos airport. The hospital driver Christopher drove me from my village to Lagos , driving about 400 miles. We rented a room in a hotel at Ikeja , nearby Lagos airport. My wife was supposed to be arriving in the evening by an Air India flight bound to Accra, Ghana with a stop in Lagos. I waited at the exit for arrivals and I checked every passenger, to my utter disgust she was not among the emerging passengers. I thought she might have been tired because of the long flight and might have fallen asleep in her seat. I felt crestfallen, but I composed myself and courageously went inside the terminal, walked towards the immigration desk for arrivals. I spelled out my predicament to a senior officer, who took pity on me, a foreign doctor. He too thought it was a reasonable request and let me go through the arrival desk to check if my wife was on the aircraft.
The old airport was not that big and from exit to tarmac it was only 400 feet. I noticed there was only one Air India Boeing 707 aircraft with two staircases on the tarmac. I crossed the gate, walked up to the rear exit staircase and climbed into the aircraft. I walked along the gangway, checked every seat and satisfied myself that my wife was not there. In those days, there was no CCTV and no one challenged me throughout my hazardous endeavour.
Unfortunately Mr Tharakan was not able to keep his word and my wife did not receive her travel documents and could not travel on that day. As a responsible Air India senior staff, he should have notified my father in law by phone. I was left in limbo wondering what had happened to my wife. Because of the very poor communication facilities between Nigeria and India, my wife was not able to inform me that she was not coming that day.I could do nothing but feel disappointed. Next day I returned to my hospital accommodation , and to my relief, my wife joined me one month after the aborted journey.
After I passed the Professional Linguistic Assessment Board
(PLAB) of the General Medical Council (GMC), I thought of leaving
Nigeria for good to pursue a fellowship in surgery in the UK in February 1981.
Myself, my wife and daughter flew from Enugu airport to Lagos Murtala
Muhammed International Airport. My brother in law accompanied us with a
view to see us off at Lagos airport. We had some spare time, so we went
up to the roof top of the new airport building and took photos of the
tarmac with air crafts . Suddenly from somewhere a security personnel
approached us and reprimanded us for taking photos and threatened to
prosecute us. I talked to him nicely and settled the matter by handing
over the exposed film to him.
We bid good bye to my brother in law and
went through check in and the next desk was for customs. I needed to
fill a form to declare how much currency I was taking out of Nigeria,
and in that I put no Nigerian currency, Naira. The lady in charge of
the customs was tough and after looking at the form, asked me to open
my Samsonite brief case. Unfortunately there was fewer than 100 Naira
(Pound sterling then 0.8 to 1 Naira), and she ruled that we were going
nowhere unless we got rid of the Naira. I first thought she might be
after some bribe, by then my wife told her that her brother would be
outside and she could hand over the money to him. Unfortunately he had
gone to the viewing gallery and he did not even respond to a public
announcement. She retuned and handed over the currency to me. Seeing
that the lady muttered, “you are going nowhere”. Now, I asked my wife to
remain at the desk and went out to the concourse, caught an Indian
looking man and briefly told him I needed to get rid of Naira to board
the flight. The Indian looking passenger accepted the currency. At last she allowed us to proceed, and we were just on time
to catch the flight bound to London Heathrow.
From
the above bitter
experiences, we all know that air travel at times can be be very
troublesome, and every air travel experience is different. Since the
advent of computer, satellite communication, and internet, we are
spoiled with unchallenging way of communication any where in the world. Had I
been in a developed country I would have received the message instantly in
1970s, and the misery could have been reduced significantly. If that was not
enough, we had more distress those days from people in position.
Dr.C.J.George
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