Flight experience: Round the clock

By Nashwa Abdel-Tawab

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A long flight with nerve-racking hours of waiting and rushing to make connecting flights is not to be compared to riding a camel through the Sahara.

On my way to Merida in Mexico, I changed three times over a total of 25 hours. I tried a new service at Cairo International airport which is called "meet and assist". It costs LE100 for locals and $100 for foreigners. They meet you at the airport, take your luggage, passport and tickets. They know exactly what you want, and do it for you in minutes while you are waiting in the VIP reception lounge.

I had forgotten to book a seat in the front row on all connected flights, so he changed them. I enjoyed an early breakfast in the VIP lounge on the second floor, chatted with a nice old lady going on the pilgrimage. Time passed quickly on the Air France flight to Paris, where I met a friend going to Mexico in the Charles De Gaulle airport.

On the 13 hour flight to Mexico, I sat in my precious front seat. I decided to get to know the passenger beside us. He was Mexican and we were Egyptian. So let's talk about Mexico and Egypt. There's a bond between us: the Pyramids, the family ties, the pollution in their cities. And it was great. He was an engineer, in business now, very educated, open-minded and with a delightful sense of humour.

We talked about many touristic sights, political issues, religious matters and future hopes. We laughed a lot, argued much, but we accepted each other with much tolerance and understanding. This interesting chat consumed almost seven hours of the flight and suddenly we didn't believe that we were going to land soon. And the time had not been wasted. We knew lots of things and got to know difference in cultures and even exchanged contacts.

My friend and I joined the long line at immigration and patiently waited for almost two hours. Both of us were very tired. Unfortunately my friend forgot his laptop while filling out some papers so we went back to fetch the forgotten laptop. But we found a hard time asking for directions. Speaking English in Mexico City is a disaster. Maybe one out of 50 persons speaks English, although they neighbour is the US.

Luckily we found it but we were running out of time. There was only 50 minutes left to take our final flight to Merida on Airo Mexicana Airlines which unfortunately was in another terminal. We ran in the direction people told us to only to find out that we have to take another small train to reach the terminal.

Finally we managed to reach it 20 minutes before the flight. Breathless we found out that the flight was delayed for another hour. We laughed and sat waiting for it. During the two hour flight to Merida, we were very tired. We wanted to go to a hotel to sleep.

I had left my house at 5 am, my flight was at 7:30 am, and I reached my final destination at 9 am Cairo time the next day. To face such an air ordeal, be prepared to make good use of exchanging places, meeting people and entertaining yourself.

Route: Cairo-Paris- Mexico City-Merida

Airlines: Air France and Aero Mexicana (for internal flight)

Have a flight story to share? Feel free and e-mail it to ntawab@weekly.ahram.org.eg.