Sorry, it has taken me much longer than expected to continue this TR. I will try to post the next few sectors before leaving again for Nairobi and Juba (and New York City, and Bogóta..) in a week.

During my 48 hours in Juba I learned that the single paved road is even more congested with UN and NGO vehicles than I remembered, that the concept of the Boutique Hotel has made it to South Sudan (Logali House, much recommended), that you can now get foamy cappucino in Juba and that it is hard to get decent software support for a Mac anywhere in Equatoria Province (big surprise, huh?). I also tried - and failed - to download several Gigabytes of software via a Satellite downlink for a fellow Mac user. Continue to be puzzled by the fact that my South Sudanese SIM card has a Ugandan dialing prefix (but would not actually work in Uganda) and that everything in South Sudan from bottled water to cement is trucked from either Kenya or Uganda. Thinking about it, even my driver is from Kenya and this is also where the 4x4 I had rented is registered. I wonder how the Sudanese feel about this. After a number of more or less enjoyable business meetings, it was time to go back to Juba airport for my flight back to Nairobi.

WED 17DEC JUBA - NAIROBI 1215 1400 J0 832 F28

Juba´s airport terminal is clearly not designed to handle the current passenger numbers. This morning there were flights to Khartoum (Marsland Aviation), Entebbe (Air Uganda) and Nairobi (East African and Jetlink) checking in simultaneously. Now, Juba airport does not really have separate check-in stations, but rather one long wooded counter dividing the departure area. The first challenge is to find the right line of people for one´s airline, then to defends one´s position until one gets to the counter. The next step involves a Jetlink representative crossing one´s name of the passenger list and manually adding it to the passenger manifest. Then one has to drag one´s luggage to a single set of mechanical scales after which a luggage tag is fixed and one moves the bag to the security table (behind the check-in area). Juba airport does not employ any x-ray machines (those exist only at the UN compound), so every single item of luggage is hand-searched, tagged with a small security sticker and then dumped in a big pile before being loaded on the plane.

Meanwhile the hapless passenger needs to continue with the immigration formalities, those involve lining up in order to sign a departure sheet and getting permit and passport stamped. Sudan is also among the country´s requiring people to register their passport before departure, something that is now also possible at Juba airport. So one needs to stand in line some more, permit and passport pages are xeroxed, one pays about 70 US$ and is then free to leave the country. This procedure is actually an improvement, not long ago one had to spend upward of three hours at the police station in town, which was mighty annoying on short trips.

Boarding pass in hand, permit and passport stamped and having dropped my bag, it is now time to enjoy the facilities of Juba airport. No lounge here, in fact not much beyond a newspaper kiosk and a small café serving soft drinks, coffee/tea and sweets. There is also a separate departure area with a number of benches and a view of the apron. Jetlink was again delayed for about two hours, which I killed drinking overpriced bottled water and reading a book. Meanwhile we watched Air Uganda, Marsland and even East African depart to their respective destination.

Finally, our plane arrived from Nairobi. This time it was an elderly Fokker 28, the only plane of this type operated by Jetlink. There was a secondary security check at the gate, where every passenger was frisked and hand luggage was checked, then another agent looked at the passport stamped. After a short walk on the tarmac I was onboard the plane (open seating on all departures from Juba). I chose a nice window seat and we were off a few minutes later, with the cockpit crew clearly anxious to make up some of the delay (which was never explained). This time - a few days before Christmas - the plane was booked full with people traveling home for the holidays. The service was the same as on the in-bound flight. First a service of soft drinks, then a cardboard box containing a sandwitch (beef, chicken or veggie), some soft cake and either an apple or joghurt, followed by a refill of your softdrink and tea/coffee. I though this was quite decent for a flight of less than 2 hours.

I was a quick walk across the tarmac from the plane to the immigration desk at Jomo Kenyatta airport. With few international planes arriving at mid-afternoon there were few people waiting, I paid the customary 20 US$ for my transit visa and when I got the belt, my bag was already circling. A few minutes later I was in a cab and on the way to my favorite hotel in Upper Hill, fighting the horrible Nairobi rush-hour traffic.

Overall verdict on Jetlink:
Check-in at NBO and JUB was ok, not more or less chaotic than with the competition. I really liked their CRJ, which compares favorably with other aircraft on the route, but this was not the case with the F28. The catering was a bit better than on Eastlink (I prefer the J0 sandwitch) and they were also about 50 US$ cheaper. The main problem were the two hour delays on both flights. I don´t know whether this is a general problem, but I will fly them again in February 09 and see how those flights compare.