“On a tour of one-night stands
My suitcase and guitar in hand
And every stop is neatly planned
For a poet and a one-man band” – Simon and Garfunkel (Homeward Bound)
I will always remember Monday, 9 December 2024, as what seemed, at the time, to be a major turning point in my life, or at least in my chosen lifestyle.
Whether, in the long run, it will prove to have been a real turning point, or perhaps just the day I suffered one of the worst anxiety attacks in my life, remains to be seen.
My job as a performing artist has always involved a lot of travelling. Not a good fit, one might say, as I was born with a very debilitating fear of heights. It took me many years of flying back and forth in South Africa, and the occasional trip abroad, to begin to cure me of this fear. Even to this day, I prefer the aisle seat to a window seat in any aeroplane (not that, in a real emergency that would make any difference).
Be that as it may. At this point in my career, I am used to flying. I have even learned to like airports. When I have to travel somewhere, I always leave early, not because I am afraid of missing my plane, but so that I can spend time drinking a leisurely cup of coffee in the lounge or browse through the books in a bookstore.
All this changed on Monday, 9 December 2024, the day I lost my faith in the management of OR Tambo Airport.
To be more exact: I lost my faith in the ability of the management of OR Tambo to deal effectively with crises.
As any frequent flier will tell you, especially people who fly overseas often, glitches at airports happen all the time. Some people would even say it is the exception rather than the norm. Even though air travel remains, statistically, the safest form of transport available, it often comes with major headaches and minor irritations.
We all hate having our flights delayed for no apparent reason. Occasionally — and this has happened to me only once — some pieces of luggage may go missing. Occasionally, a piece of luggage will arrive at the other end in such a state that one can see it has been opened or tampered with (yes, this has happened to me a few times; once, on arrival at Bloemfontein airport, I was dismayed to discover that a bottle of expensive brandy had mysteriously vanished out of my suitcase).
To cut a long story short: by now, we all know what happened at OR Tambo on Monday, the ninth of December. It has been all over the news for days on end. Reading about it, though, and being caught in the middle of such a nightmare, are two different things.
Read more: Airports company SA faces backlash over refuelling crisis amid calls for better communication
Perhaps it was just my luck that I arrived at the airport on a Monday morning, instead of a Sunday as usual. (Because most of my performances happen during the weekend, I usually fly home on a Sunday.) However, I had performed in Potchefstroom on Sunday evening and caught an early lift with a colleague to the airport that Monday.
No one warned me
Arriving at OR Tambo, I did not notice that anything was unusual. Nothing seemed amiss as I checked in my luggage. No one warned me of the chaotic situation I was about to enter.
After I had gone through the departure gate, however, I immediately sensed that something was wrong. In fact, everything was wrong. That part of the airport was much, much more crowded than usual. All the available chairs were occupied and many people were camping out on the floor. I use the word “camping” deliberately; clearly, these disgruntled people were not simply waiting for their flights. They seemed to be there for the long haul. I became aware of a collective sense of despair, even of impending doom.
It was only after I arrived at my designated gate and was unable to locate the airline crew who usually manned the counter that I heard the news from a person standing in the queue in front of me: just about all the flights had been indefinitely delayed. Something to do with refuelling problems.
I will not dwell too much on the tedium, the horror or the sheer madness of the next few hours. Suffice it to say that my departure gate changed three times; first, it was D7, then it was E11, then D8. Perhaps I should add that the D and the E gates were on different floors, very far apart from each other.
Should I mention that, halfway through this pointless process of running around, trying in vain to extract information from unhelpful airport staff, the air-conditioning system of the entire airport broke down? And this, in the middle of one of the worst heatwaves to have ever hit Gauteng?
Announcements and apologies were periodically broadcast on the intercom system, but these conveyed no useful information at all and, shockingly, no sense of urgency. The gate changes were not even announced by OR Tambo; I learned about these via SMS messages from my airline (by the way, I should mention that the airline, Lift, is my favourite South African airline and that they were the only people to emerge from this horrendous experience with flying colours).
To cut a long story short (have I said this before? My apologies), hours later, when I found myself seated in the plane, it was still not the end of the ordeal; we had to wait an extraordinarily long time to be towed away so that we could approach the runway.
I was supposed to catch my plane before lunchtime on Monday, the ninth of December. As it turned out, I only arrived home in Cape Town after sunset.
Read more: Flights delayed for hours at OR Tambo International after refuelling system fails
As delays go, this one — just short of four hours — was one of the worst I had ever experienced. However, it was not the real issue here.
Sense of hopelessness
Worse than the actual delay was the total sense of helplessness, the lack of communication from anyone at OR Tambo, the feeling that they did not know how to handle this crisis, and that they did not care.
Indeed, worse than the refuelling problem (which was, after all, just a technical glitch) was the sense of wrongness, the feeling of being abandoned and left to our own resources.
Even if OR Tambo should decide to reimburse me for this glitch, it would not change my perception of it — this perception, sadly, is one which has grown over time.
Press reports have hinted, for a couple of months now, that there were serious shortcomings in the air traffic control system of OR Tambo.
Read more: Mayday! Serial SA flight delays expose systemic air traffic failures that threaten aviation safety
A few months ago, I was on board another flight, this one bound for Johannesburg, when, upon touching down, the pilot had to abort the landing after the wheels of the plane had already touched down on the tarmac.
Yes, this happened. As it turned out, we were midway through the landing procedure when the pilot apparently glanced up and saw another plane blocking the runway.
He had no choice but to take off again, that very second, and return to our holding pattern.
The second time round, fortunately, there were no glitches, and we landed safely.
Having a flight delayed is one thing. Experiencing an aborted landing because of misinformation supplied by incompetent air traffic control officers is something else altogether.
Anyway. As I said before; Monday, 9 December 2024, was the day when I finally lost my faith in the management of that airport.
It was, however, not the first time I suspected something seriously was amiss at OR Tambo.
Perhaps it was just the last straw. DM