of songs unfinished

i have travelled a lot in my short lifetime. i mean, upwards of fifty flights would qualify as a lot of flying. i am fortunate to have enjoyed amazing flights like arik air, emirates and british airways and i have had my fair share of turbulence on the flight to warri airstrip (yes, the noisy propeller one) and other local flights. i have flown everything from Dana, ADC, bellview, chanchangi, IRS, aero to virgin nigeria. the only one i have not entered is "first nation". the honest truth is that within the local airline industry, the mark of a healthy airline is not so much the maintenance culture, but the price and the timing. for most airline travellers, one flight is the same as the next. every plane seems to make the same gruelling noise during take off and must bounce twice during landing. every pilot speaks in tongues (you can barely hear under the heavy mumbled accent) and all the air hostesses must wear the tightest possible skirts in the market. same old same old. more than half the time, the factors that you are left to consider when you have to fly remain the timing (first flights if you have a 9 am meeting in abuja) and afternoon flights if youre travelling on weekends expecting the crazy delays that will move your flight to 3 pm eventually.

for me, it was different. although i am not any better informed about the workings of an aircraft than the next person, i am a very perceptive person by nature. nothing ever passes me by, not even the tiniest things...like ear pressure and noise of flight. and this is why i immediately fell in love with ArikAir as soon as they were established. i had spent years complaining to everyone who cared to listen that the level of ear pressure i witnessed on the lagos abuja flights was becoming unbearable. everyone said it was in my subconscious. i remember it got so bad in 2008 during my flight to Ghana on a local airline that i fell too sick to function by the second day of my trip due to the terrible headaches that started out as mad ear pressure on the flight. since noone else seemed to have these issues, i always did feel like i was over-reacting. and then i got lucky and flew a truly international airline for the first time in my life on the way to dubai (Emirates). that was when i realized that there was indeed a problem with aircraft used on the local routes minus Arik. everytime i flew arik i knew something was right about their aircraft. the sound of the engine was like a new benz, the ear pressure was almost non-existent and we always landed with absolutely no drastic altitude loss or double bounce on the tarmac (with trembling and screeching and all).

naturally, Arik became my airline of choice...and they have not yet disappointed. yes, i have used the phrase "not yet" because it is beginning to appear that with the current lack of standards in the airline industry, it is but a matter of time before the best airlines mess up and often mess up big time. i used to be a Bellview fan and infact flew them a day after the crash a few years ago. their marketing was impeccable, their hype was second to none...infact going by the quality of their service, they were the next best thing after toast bread. until that fateful day. of all the brouhaha that followed the double air crashes of that terrible year, the only thing that sticks to my mind is that noone was brought to book. no negligence was established and no report was published. the airlines just kept on like nothing happened, only God knows if compensation has been fully paid and the government pushed it aside and trudged on. i remember how the gatekeepers of the Airline industry (Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria and Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority) traded harsh words over who was responsible for carrying out periodic audits on the planes etc. then suddenly, it left the headlines and we moved on. between then and yesterday, and i know i'm getting old and maybe mixing things up, there have been nigerian airlines crashlanding in ghana, having burst tires, running into cattle on the tarmac, overshooting the runway and generally decimating the population without hesitation. and nothing happens. usually, the same rhetorics are made by the president and relevant members of his cabinet but nothing happens.

so short of writing an epistle, the Dana airline crash of yesterday should not go the way of the others. too many innocent lives have been lost. babies and children have gone. it is not their fate, it is our negligence. we have refused to do the right thing and uphold the global standards required for a technical industry, our pilots have probably become merchants interested in clocking manhours towards their next promotion (no offence and no reference to any particular incident) and the government is more confused than ever. so here is my simple solution to mr. president: ask IATA (international air transport association) to send in international auditors to provide a public report on the airline industry. ask them to identify which of the planes remain fit for use and for how long. expose the rotten eggs in the industry and save us from needless untimely death through one more source (Boko Haram is doing this quite well thank you) and then if your political ambitions will allow, punish anyone found guilty or negligent and do justice by the departed.

may the soul of the departed rest in perfect peace...and may the living find the strength to continue. Amen

see y'all around peeps.