Friends and Family,
The storm seems to be passed. Smooth sailing in the forecast. The only known casualties reported were my premium seats.
STORM PASSED, STABILITY REGAINED
I am back on my original schedule just 24 hours late with different seats on the planes. No one ever explained exactly what happened. The language in Madagascar is either French or Malagasy. Those who need to deal with passengers speak some English.
YOUR GUESS AS GOOD AS MINE
That being said, I have no idea of exact details. Here are some observations. I got bumped from flight KQ257 because “there wasn’t enough room.” Second observation: The 1:10am flight for those of us who got bumped was as full as a normal late afternoon flight. Third observation: The flight at 1:10am had the same flight number. Hmmm. Fourth observation: The pilot at 1:10am apologized and said it was an operational issue that they had no control over. Hmmm. Did the computers fill the flight twice? We’ll never know.
They sent us to a big hotel near the airport to rest and have dinner. Kenya air paid. My new itinerary came via email while I was at the hotel. We returned to the airport in time to check in and board. We arrived in Nairobi at 4:30am Saturday, which is 8:30pm ET Friday. I have lounge privileges so went to the lounge in Nairobi and kind of slept, sort of, for 2-3 hrs.
WAIT
Now it is a waiting game. I came to the lounge at about 5:30am. I’m here until midnight when I depart for Amsterdam. This is the flight I was to be on yesterday. Delta flight out of Amsterdam, same as yesterday. The bad news is that I had paid a little extra for premium seating. But since the problem was with Kenya, not KLM or Delta, I doubt there is any chance of getting that money back. I did get an exit row seat with Delta but it is an exit row middle seat. I prefer isle. With KLM it is isle but not exit. I called Delta to see what they could work out. They tried hard but nothing was changed. I even tried to use my 24 years of loyalty and over 1.5 million miles to get an upgrade to business class. Nice try but not possible . . . never know unless you ask.
So, for now, I am back on schedule just 24 hours later with not quite as good of seats as before.7
I have added new pictures from Friday. Some were taken through rain-drop spotted car windows. To see what was added, CLICK HERE.
By His grace,
Steve
Actual album location: https://photos.app.goo.gl/vDmtRxNLa2pkYK2N6