The decision has been unmade

Booked a flight back home for April 16th on 10th. On 11th the Tanzanian Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) locked down the airspace for commercial civil flights which was not well communicated through the media. First public notifications on that appeared on 12th. On 13th in the morning Ethiopian (I booked through their partner Lufthansa) still listed my flight as bookable and its status as "green". So I quickly descended from Mambo into Dar in a 10-hours cruise. Even on 13th in the afternoon I was still able to prepone my flight from the 16th on the 14th on the telephone, just to increase the chance of catching a flight. And now, on 14th in the morning, all the world seems to know that all flights are suspended since 11th, except for Lufthansa. I phoned them again to tell them "Yeah, boys, look, your flight is no more.". "Oh, thanks for the info Mr. Michael.". They checked in some kind of "2nd system" and there they found that it is not scheduled any more. Surprise. Can anyone tell me why this information flow is so damn difficult in our digital era and why I as a customer have to hassle with it myself?

I have to admit that last week the German embassy pushed very clearly to get on the soonest flight possible. As if they knew of the coming lockdown. There will be no further repatriation flights because we had the possibility to hop on a regular Ethiopian flight for several weeks until now. I can follow that but still would have expected some announced deadlines. Next time I know better ;-)

I will wait 1-2 more days here at Eckhard's place where I would have left the car. Then I probably will be ascending back into Usambara mountains to move into a cozy cottage with Kilimanjaro view. Eckhard moved to Dar 40 years ago and was running a truck workshop until 4 years ago. And bet what? He is from Brauni-Braunschweig. An epic facial expression he had when he read my number plate yesterday :-D Czytaj więcej