Libre Magazine

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have just landed in Cairo. Thank you for travelling with us, we hope you had a pleasant flight”

With this call, my suffering of 2.15 hours of flight came to an end. As we prepared to get off the plane, all passengers were eager for a taste of the homeland; while I was eager to just to get off the damn plane. This had been the worst flight of my life.

It all started when I suddenly found that I had to leave the country I worked in, to renew the visa and enter the country again later on. With one more day valid on the visa and that day being Friday, I had to make haste to leave the country, so I called up someone I knew, who then referred me to another, whom I talked to and then got referred to a third; after all the talking and explaining, I had managed to book a flight out of there on the same day, the flight would leave 11.55 pm, making it the last flight of the day.

So now relieved that I had secured a ticket and that I was good to go, I went home packed a small bag (I was going to stay in Egypt a week at most), took a shower and then went out to dine. Later, when I got back home, I slept for an hour, then woke up, showered, got dressed and started making my way to the airport. There I was appalled to see the massive lines on the counter and in every part of the airport.

I had thought that since its night time, it’s definitely going to be better than morning, and oh man! was I wrong. As it turned out, the night flight is the worst flight ever, the number of passengers is much higher; not to mention their luggage. I mean there were people carrying bags that weighed roughly as much as I did (and I am heavy). There were families with gazillion bags, and it seemed as if they were not going for a vacation but they were transporting their wardrobe; it was crazy.

Waiting in line, I turned my mp3 player on so I could deafen out the sounds of countless people arguing and socializing. After waiting in line for an hour, I finally made my way up to the counter (oh, and did I mentioned I only had 6 people in front of me?) And my luck would have it, by the time I got there, the plane got full and I was put on standby. That’s when I started getting irritated and paranoid; I wasn’t going to make it and I will break my visa curfew. After some talks and explaining how urgent and important my travel was; it seemed as if everyone’s case was urgent. Anyway, the airline ordered another plane be ready for the same destination, and so things went back to normal and I went on with the proceedings. Thankfully, after about 10 minutes, I was finally at the gate and said my goodbye to my brother and friend. Once I reached near the airplanes door, I was astonished to see different crew seating the passengers, and I was like, urrmm am I on the right plane, turns out I was, the airline company had so much passengers it actually rented a plane from another airline.

As I entered the plane, I could tell right away, that this won’t be a comfy ride, the seats were M sized, while I am an XL individual. So when I got to my seat, I could barely made myself fit, with one butt cheek out of the chair, and my whole body sitting mostly sideways.

Inside the plane, the whole place was a mess, with people carrying up to four bags with them and all trying to lodge them in the adjacent baggage compartment, which of course resulted in come very funny moments, for me at least. The crew was dumbfounded at how the passengers were acting and clinging on to the bags. In the end, the crew had to drop almost half the baggage so we could all be seated. An hour later, the plane was finally ready for takeoff.

The following moments were too painful to remember, so I will skip the details of that horrendous flight. Thank God, it was a short flight. One thing though, the seatbelt didn’t fit, I am big, but still, that had never happened before. That sure was one of the smallest planes ever.

As the wheels hit the runway, suddenly a passenger popped up and started to make his way to the restroom; the crew stood there for a second not comprehending, and then attacked the guy obstructing his path and shouting, telling him to take his seat. The guy fought back, he needed to go to the bathroom badly, ”but we have landed” he had his reasons. In the meanwhile, some other people started getting up. A crew member told the passengers to sit down, it was still dangerous; and true to his word the plane did make an abrupt break and half the passengers knocked their head, or fell.

In the midst of all that I was laughing so hard, never had I seen such insanity and chaos in a flight, or poor handling from the crew (the landing sucked big time), luckily the exit door was next to my seat and so I made my way out fairly quickly, as I stood there for a brief moment to breath in my country’s air, pollution struck with a funky smell, that made my nose twitch.
Being one of the first ones to get off the plane, I went through the immigration counter quickly but it was of no use. Once we moved to the conveyor belt to get our bags, I had to wait there for an hour. After that, my fears turned out to be true, the bags were not on this plane. (I did get my bags two days later.)

And so I went home at 5 in the morning; that had to be one of the longest days ever, if not the most tiring day of my life.

I took this unexpected vacation as a blessing and did everything I could think of; see my friends, check up on my family, go the beach, listen to the music, eat home cooked and native food, get to meet people from my neighborhood. All this made me wonder, why I left home in the first place?