At 22:00 on Tuesday 17th Feb the foreign and commonwealth office has decided to change to travel advice in the Gambia to against all but essential travel. This was because the previous president Yahya Jammeh contested the election results of a new president Adama Barrow. With the inauguration coming up, the president decided that he would not step down for the new one.
There were protests and the new president was supported by Economic Community of West African States and The UN. Due to this the travel advice has changed.
I got a message advising of a conference call to take place at 22:15, on the call we were advised of the situation, advising how many customers were still in the country and that we would be deployed for a day trip into the country to operate the local airport (BJL) with the 1 scheduled flight and 4 rescue flights sent in and we would return home on the last flight of the day.
The plan was to meet at the office at 02:30 and a taxi would take us to Manchester airport.
Day 1
Upon arriving at the airport, at 05:30 we went to check in and were all issues standby tickets for the rescue flight MT4810.
MT4810
A321 G-TCDD
MAN-BJL
Sched: No Sched as a rescue flight
Act: 07:09-13:06
We were called for boarding, all 8 of us on the 220 seater A321.
The crew and captain came down pre deparutre to us and had a chat about the flight, whats going on and were asking what we were upto. They advise the flight will be relaxed as we are staff and food and drink would be available when we wanted.
We all decided to sit near the back, as it was closer to the ovens for food! Took ourselves a row each, turned them into beds and time to go.
Time for takeoff on this busy flight
A packed flight
We took off in the early hours, this flight just consisted of, sleep, breakfast and coffee. A quick team briefing of what will take place on landing, then to enjoy the rest of the flight.
The scenery of the rest of the journey until landing
Anyone know what plane this is?
And this, the boss man's plane
.Now we had landed, we got off the plane, spoke to the local ground crew, they then took us to the terminal, they did say however we needed to go through as quick as possible, so we would not be going through immigration, instead we were taken through the aircrew door and straight into the departures hall.
We were not expecting this
The local staff could not check in the rescue flights on the computers, only the scheduled flight, this meant that we had to go old school, with manual boarding card and manifests.
As we arrived at the airport at 13:00 and the passengers got there from 8am, there was no control of the airport whatsoever, all we could due was try to mange the areas, help on check in, with the agent doing the boarding passes and bags, we did the manifests.
We were fighting an uphill struggle but we did our best, and got out the 5 flights with over 1000 passengers returning to the UK. The FCO rapid deployment team arrived to assist later on in the day.
The team leader asked us all, if it would be of if we would stay the night and help out the next day, we all said yes.
When the last flights had gone, we had arranged hotels for the 107 passengers still remaining in the airport, once the coaches arrived, the passengers left and it was time for this.
Yes my passport is VERY VERY worn out!
So we were staying at the Coco Ocean resort, this was an amazing hotel, the manager came to pick us up as he didn't want his staff driving after curfew at night. I went with the team leader and my local colleague in the private car.
The plan for tonight, we food, a few beers and some rest. First things first, we bought some toothbrushes, toothpaste and deodorant, as we only planned the day trip.
The some snaps from the hotel:
After a good sleep, an amazing breakfast, it was time for Day 2, 5 more flights, UK immigration causing trouble, the Senegalese army entering, the country, a briefing and an exit plan from our security team, some much needed assistance and another night in the Gambia.
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