Stewie Mac

[and there’s prize for anyone/the first person who actually knows the airline code 8Z without guessing from the airport code…]

Back in the DRC again, three years after my last trip here, and a lot has changed while some things have stayed the same. There’s a shiny new airport building for Kinshasa N’Djili, and the flight from Addis had more white faces and fewer Chinese than three years ago. Sadly, that also meant that the immigration queue was much longer.

Nice new terminal at FIH





What hasn’t changed is buying airline tickets. Like Camair, Congo Airways has a fancy website, but while it looks like you can buy tickets online, the purchase kept failing at payment stage. Since this was an internal flight, and I had already booked my flight out of the DRC (with SAA) and had ticket in hand, I wasn’t worried and figured I’d buy in it Kinshasa.

The Congo Airways office is newer and shinier than Jeffries Travel further down Blvd de 30 juin, but it’s the same process of first booking a ticket, then paying at the caisse and getting a receipt.

Congo Airways office





And just as before, while they claim to take cards they blustered and flustered when I actually tried to give them a Mastercard, and finally admitted that I’d have to go to the ATM and take out money. I used my back-up dollar stash instead – only one bill was rejected for being ‘torn’ (=not completely pristine and crunchy), and within ten minutes I had an eticket receipt. Along with the stern warning to be at the airport by 6am. For a 9.30 flight.

I don’t think so. There’s huge bottles of Primus to be drunk tonight.

More later

offerendum

8Z - guess it's not WizzAir in this case

The title is interesting and we'll see which poor goats found their way to the BBQ

Stewie Mac

oops - didn't know that 8Z is also the airline code for WizzAir. You're right, it's not that one here...

Stewie Mac

Remember what I said yesterday, about the new terminal at N'djili? Well, there is one but it's only for international flights - the old building is still used for domestics.

So that's where we're off to this morning, picked up at 7am and heading out through a quieter Kinshasa to the airport, stopping to pick up Jerry the protocol man on the way.

This time I'm much more relaxed giving Jerry my passport and $15 for the departure tax in crunchy new notes, and then he's greeting the security man on the door like an old buddy as I put my bag through the x-ray and we head inside.

Which is exactly as I remember, a circular atrium with airline offices on the right and checkin on the left.

FIH domestic checkin


EDIT TO ADD: I was looking at my post on NKC, and thinking about how quiet the departure lounge is in the video...
so I thought I'd include this video of FIH domestic checkin!


Jerry heads to the tax office (now moved inside) and comes back a few minutes later with my precious stamped receipts (don't lose them!) and we stand and wait. It's five to eight, and apparently checkin for our flight is not yet open ... which doesn't surprise me at all, even with the sales agent telling me to be here at six.

As Kinshasa has got busier, so has the airport, and this old terminal is crowded and confusing - I wouldn't do this without a protocol agent, not with a white face, even if I was doing it monthly.

Five minutes later I'm wondering when we're going to checkin, when another buddy arrives with my passport and boarding pass in hand.

Congo Airways BP


A suspicious lack of seat number makes me wonder how chaotic boarding will be, but before I can worry we're heading through to departures, past the guy checking passport/BP/ tax receipt, then onto some kind of immigration type check - scan of passport, much typing, questions about occupation and address in Kinshasa, handing over one of the departure tax receipts (don't lose the others!) and finally a muttered request for 'une pourboire', which I get around by pretending not to hear/understand and after repeating it three times she gives up and hands back the docs.

Security is quick and simple, laptop out but no liquids ban (I have a 750ml bottle of water in my bag) and no need to remove shoes/watch/belt. Which given Jerry has just walked straight around both the immigration and security to wait for me in the lounge, is unsurprising.

Stewie Mac

The departure lounge is exactly as I remember it, a rectangle full of hard chairs with a 'duty free' shop on one side and a bar/cafe and VIP lounge on the other. There is no longer air conditioning, just open doors at the 'boarding gate' end, but it's still quite cool at this time in the morning.

FIH domestic departures


They have removed any potential for information screen conflict by only having one switched on, which seems to be at least broadly correct - a flight to Goma, one to Mbuji-Mayi and a couple to Lubumbashi, flyCAA first and then our Congo Airways flight. There is still a cursory baggage rummage and pat down at the gate, but having done it before (and getting quite used to African airports) it feels quite mundane rather than concerning.

They announce a flight to Lubumbashi (a shout from the gate area, 'Lubumbashi') and there's a rush but Jerry waves at me to sit down, and I figure this is the first flight.

FIH domestic 'gate'



But ten minutes later there's a bare scattering of people left sitting, and I'm feeling a bit like he's dropped me in the shoot as he tells me he was just waiting for the queue to die down and I think that I'll be left with a middle seat by the toilet...

I open my bag for the rummage and my bottle of water is taken off me - they will 'check it in' and give it back to me when we land, but I can't have it on the plane. All this is done with smiles and politeness, and it makes me realise how unreasonably miserable the Heathrow T5 staff are. I give up the bottle without a fight, and then it's a BP check and a walk outside across the scorching tarmac to the waiting plane. Jerry is still with me and he gets a salute from the policeman doing the first doc check, and I'm waved past without a glance. The second man takes my second departure tax receipt, and then a final BP/passport check at the foot of the stairs and we board the A320.

Stewie Mac

The aircon is blasting and the plane is cool, feeling old although it's clean and looks in good condition. Business is euro-style, five rows with tables between the armrests in the B and E seats, but the same legroom. I manage to snag 9D and squeeze my bag into the overhead. The seats are grey leatherette Recaros, and the feel is of a Lufthansa plane before they got the crappy NEK seats and minus the yellow.

8Z interior


Legroom is around 32', with no inflight magazine in the pocket to encroach.


The safety card looks like it's been done on my printer at home, but the briefing is comprehensive and bilingual, and the announcements from the flight deck sound like they're made by an actual Frenchman speaking French and excellent English.

The flight is about 95% full in the back, just a few middles free towards the back, but very little hand baggage stress. As we finish boarding I see business getting given a pre-departure glass of juice, and with only a few minutes delay we're powering down the single runway and off.

Ten minutes after we reach cruise the trolley arrives - at first I think I've found where BA got rid of theirs, but on closer examination it's from Royal Air Maroc. I had thought that the male cabin crew didn't look very Congolese, and a glance at one of their badges as they serve reinforces the view that they're Moroccan. The female crew, on the other hand, look Congolese and are dressed in bright branded outfits.



We get a snack (very French breakfast of yogurt, fruit and pastries) and a choice of coffee or soft drink.



There's the offer of cups of water when they do the rubbish round - a local brand called ABEER Cooling, which always makes me smile.

Stewie Mac

The flight time is 2 hours 20, a smooth and utterly unexceptional flight. In fact, I did consider for a while not posting this report, as the flight itself was very ... normal. But then I figured there would be enough to interest folk who want to know about intra-africa travel, and the stuff at the ends is interesting.

We landed with hardly a bump and very little applause into a hot and sunny Luano airport, then disembarked down stairs and walked across the apron to arrivals.

There was an ET flight just boarding at the same time, and our paths literally crossed, wandering past each other in different directions on the tarmac. Again, it only serves to reinforce my view that so much of what the 'civilised world' does in the name of 'security' is just to be seen to be doing something... it's all crap.

This man, and the people on the left, are heading out to board their ET flight


Anyway, Lubumbashi was lovely and the airport is pretty small,




...so contrary to what I said yesterday, I thought that I'd have a go at doing without a protocol agent when I left this morning. And although the process was rather chaotic, I found, as I have done generally in the DRC, that a white man with a minder/local is viewed with suspicion or worse, a white man by himself is treated as 'un blanc fou' and given a surprising amount of help... I had no problem checking in and getting my departure tax receipts (don't lose them!) and hopefully I'll make the flight!

offerendum

Enjoyable! Funny to see all the reused equipment on the plane.

Stewie Mac

After getting my (hand-written, first time I've seen one of those for a while) boarding pass and tax receipts,



I go to find somewhere to sit and sort myself out. The SAA flight has not arrived yet, and from what I can see 'airside' is literally the same as 'outside' so I postpone going through security for now. The small bar/restaurant by checkin is busy and windowless, so I head upstairs and find myself in the 'business lounge' which just seems to be a bar/restaurant spread over two rooms , but with nice views over the apron. I order a large Simba and take a break, enjoying the view of a Congo Airways flight arriving, and a small exec jet leaving.



At about the time our SAA flight is due to arrive, an unmarked plane with ZS registration lands and I start to think that maybe the SAA leg will be more interesting than the Congo Airways one.



Fifteen minutes later the passengers have disembarked and the man in the lounge/bar walks through saying 'passengers for Johannesburg', but pointing us to the other end of the lounge from the way I came in, and the departures area.

Through a door, down the stairs and then outside, totally skipping the regular security and immigration, and I'm thinking it the best $3 I've ever spent....and I got a beer.

There's a table set up outside the door, and a lady doing the 'African bag rummage' while a man behind her waves a handheld wand over your trousers. Use a shoulder holster for your gun and you'd be straight though in Africa - or you can do as the two guys behind me do, proffer a 10,000 franc note (about $6) and bypass this bit altogether.



Then it's a wander across the tarmac to yet another queue. As we wait, a small jet takes off - looks a bit like a BAe 146 that's been in the wash, the same high wing and wing-mounted jets, but teeny. There are few markings but again it's ZS registered and I reckon it's the thrice-weekly charter run for Freeport-McMoRan, making a stop in FBM to clear DRC immigration on its way from JNB to their mining operation in Katanga.



The queue reveals itself to include first a(nother) BP check, then collection of the tax receipts, then passport check (I never did get stamped out of DRC), then another baggage rummage and wanding, then positive checked baggage identification, then yellow fever certificate check, and finally, at the bottom of the plane stairs, a lady taking the BP and handing back the stub.





I know some people will be horrified by this, this very African mix of petty bureaucracy and slapdash process, but I love it - it acts as a wonderful counterpoint to all the 'we can make you safe' security theatre that we subjugate ourselves to in 'civilized' countries. Let's face it, we're all still much more likely to die in a car accident on our way to work.

Anyway, the plane turns out to be a 'Africa Charter Airline' 737-500, feeling old inside but I have somehow got an exit row seat (see, told you they feel sorry for 'le blanc fou') and it's a quiet flight.



And when I ask for a Hansa, the nice lady gives me two - 'most people on their way home need them'. I'm not sure that I do, to be honest with you, but as anyone who has read any of my TRs will know, I find it very hard to say no to a beer.

Stewie Mac

When I sorted this trip, I thought that a TR on Congo Airways would be a good idea, expecting to be telling tales of goats in the aisles and chickens in the overheads.

How wrong I was. I wrote this as I went along, and during the actual flight I did think about not posting at all, as the flight was so utterly ordinary. Free seating aside, it could have been an intra-Europe flight on almost any carrier, although the offer of free food would exclude the likes of BA.

I've posted it anyway because I think that the ground process, both in terms of checkin and departures, make for an interesting read.

I will be honest and say that I love the DRC - it's a fascinating place, the people are by and large friendly, and the beer comes in enormous bottles.



The craziness in the airport is just what happens when the rigid processes of international air travel meet the heart of Africa...


And if you want to know about the goats on the BBQ.... well, grilled meat is a staple across Africa, and in DRC it's typically goat, grilled with a little onion and hot pepper and served with more chilli powder



Most bars have a goat carcass hanging up, and they chop off bits to order before grilling them for you



And let's just say that the goats don't have to come too far . The one below is lying about 6 feet from its sibling above. It would be a great place to show kids where our food comes from!

flying_blue_white_red

Thank you very much Stewie Mac for sharing this first ever TR about Congo Airways on DRC's busiest route. Overall product looks fine, and from what i've read 8Z performances are not as good as expected! hope their ops will not end too soon or à la Korongo Airlines.

Certainly a very good decision ^

In Rwanda and Burundi too goat is widely eaten though it often (always?) comes as skewer... Brochettes na Primus = poa kabisa

ironmanjt

Thanks for posting - brings back great memories of Africa. Definitely agree with your point that sometimes, it's refreshing to have a "real" situation instead of all the fake theatre we've dreamed up to make ourselves feel safe!

MA330

Thanks for this superb report. Good read to start the weekend!

Cheers

Madone59

Wonderful Trip Report ^^ Thank you for sharing.

SanDiego1K

I love your reports, Stewie Mac. It's great to see you launching a new report in this forum. We used your report on Peru as an inspiration for our travels years back. I'm not sure we'll be visiting this part of the world, but you never know. Very interesting.