Best & Worst Airports

[cdnvic]

Spent nearly a night in the airport jail in Benin once - now THAT was not a good day!

Could you expand on that?

cv

[Ian_B]

Spent nearly a night in the airport jail in Benin once - now THAT was not a good day!

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Could you expand on that?

cv

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My first time in Nigeria. Just done my 4 weeks and was going home... got off the rig without any probs and was in Warri airport with hours to spare till my 4pm flight to Lagos.

Flight to lagos was on time amazingly. Then a bloody big storm blew over lagos airport. We tried to land a few times to no avail. Then the pilot opened the curtain and told us we have no fuel to go back and so have to land in Benin, the Country North of Nigeria.

Problem was Benin & Nigeria have never been exactly friendly... so we land about 20 mins later and were instantly surrounded by the Benin army!

Me and my fellow passengers the get escorted to the holding cells while they figure out what to do with us.

About 5 hours later the pilot comes back and it was the usual "Hello my friends... how much money do you each have..." He took US$200 from each of us (probably pocketing his share as well) and then within half and hour we were en-route back to Lagos and landed just after midnight.

Of course I missed that nights BA flight to gatwick so had to spend a night there.

Ian

[Rinrada]

Good one but quite normal and all part of the fun of working in Africa.

My time there goes back to the 70s when most of the intercon flights were British Caledonia,UTA (french) with local outfits like Air Afrique,Sierra Leone Airways (run by B.Cal) and all the shady ones like Timbuct 2 Air from Mali and Air Con out of Kano (local Al Hadji )which eventually crashed ...and not financially.

Couple of guys from Finland were the pilots and could usually get a lift back to Stansted for a weekend jolly (out of africa)

Everwhere I went the story was the same ..."yoo dash me-him there boss-Oi bo -Oi bo,ba hassa ya"

The Thai police must have done their corruption training courses on some sort of cultural x-change visit over there..

As said Africa-lagos,Warri,Ibaden,Kano,Port H (Biafra-even met Col OJuku once)Sierra Leone,Liberia,Mali,Upper Volta (Burkio F) Owaggdugu,Ghana,Abi Jan,Benin (ha-ha),Malawi,Zambia,Congo,Brazza ville...o la la and and 100 odd god for Saken flea bitten rubbish infested piles of S.......but all good fun.

[Ian_B]

Good one but quite normal and all part of the fun of working in Africa.

My time there goes back to the 70s when most of the intercon flights were British Caledonia,UTA (french) with local outfits like Air Afrique,Sierra Leone Airways (run by B.Cal) and all the shady ones like Timbuct 2 Air from Mali and Air Con out of Kano (local Al Hadji )which eventually crashed ...and not financially.

Couple of guys from Finland were the pilots and could usually get a lift back to Stansted for a weekend jolly (out of africa)

Everwhere I went the story was the same ..."yoo dash me-him there boss-Oi bo -Oi bo,ba hassa ya"  

The Thai police must have done their corruption training courses on some sort of  cultural x-change visit over there..

As said Africa-lagos,Warri,Ibaden,Kano,Port H (Biafra-even met Col OJuku once)Sierra Leone,Liberia,Mali,Upper Volta (Burkio F) Owaggdugu,Ghana,Abi Jan,Benin (ha-ha),Malawi,Zambia,Congo,Brazza ville...o la la and and 100 odd god for Saken flea bitten rubbish infested piles of S.......but all good fun.

 

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Oh yes.... Forgot all about the "oui-bo oui-bo" remarks

All coming back to me now - "Aunties Kitchen" in Warri, Chici's & Friends in PH and quite a few places in Port Gentil

Edited January 21, 2005 by Ian_B

[350torana]

I would rate Changi and Tullamarine as my fav's . Dubai is ok, but is becoming more and more chaotic for traffic, passengers at peak times, growing way to fast . I prefer Abu Dhabi airport but most visitors to the Emirates do the Dubai thing

Hobart international airport is my favourite though. Called International because there is a flight to New Zealand once a week