Or at least, that's what we thought as my brother drove us to Dubai Internation Airport. Little did we know that chaos was awaiting us in the form of Yemen Air check-in counter.
You've never seen anything like it at Dubai International Airport. Dubai prides itself for having one of the leading airports in the world; yet how can one explain Yemen Air being allowed to conduct itself in the atrocious manner that it did? For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of a horizontal queue - welcome to Yemen Air. Only it wasn't just horizontal, it was diagonal as well. So, you've got people like me and my husband - good, law-abiding citizens - queuing as one would - normally:vertically, and then you've got others assaulting the queue from every imaginable angle possible. No barriers, no Yemen Air ground crew. Just an impatient mob - made up mostly of what looked like Indonesian domestic aids with colorful headscarves, returning home either for good or for a vacation - and an insane amount of bulky, cumbersome luggage.
We'd been 'queuing' like that for about half an hour, when I went up to the counter and asked for the manager. He took his sweet time to come talk to me, although he was right there and
I could see him! When he did come, he listened to me, offhandedly, and walked away without so much as a single syllable word! After another 20 minutes of teeth grinding and obsessive nail biting, I fixed the manager with a stare he couldn't ignore, even across the sea of people, and he just looked and, making a constipated face, put his fingers together in the gesture that signifies 'wait' in Arabic. And proceeded to do absolutely nothing to make the situation better.
This was just a sign of things to come.
Finally checked in, went through passport control, shopped at the duty free and arrived at our assigned gates with plenty of time to spare, only to find that the flight was delayed by two and a half hours!
Wait...there's more!
We were in the departure lounge and the voice had just announced that we could start boarding, when the very same manager walked up to - no other than the two of us - and said hurriedly, and without an apology, that they'd overbooked, and he'd have to offload us! OFFLOAD US! I think it was the looks on both our faces that made him backtrack immediately and say, equally hurriedly, "No, no, maybe I upgrade you to first class. Come with me, board." My husband and I grabbed our bags and headed towards the boarding gate more out of a desire to escape the crowd than believing he was going to upgrade us. Boy, were we right. Just as soon as we were in the plane and past its doors, he said something along the lines of, "No, forget it, forget." My husband and I found our assigned seats and, deciding to disregard the whole saga in hope of getting some shut eye, prepared ourselves with travel eye patches and ear plugs.
But that's not the end - not just yet!
After about 20 minutes of trying to go to sleep, my husband and I realized that the plane hadn't taken off. It took the plane another 40 minutes before it finally took off. They served one meal and a snack later - the former was rice with a choice of chicken or minced meat that looked like regurgitated cat food, and the latter was a single triangle comprising of stale, white bread and an almost invisible slice of plastic cheese; needless to say, after a preliminary perusal we prefered to try handing ourselves over to the sandman.
I hear you ask: why Yemen Air?
Well, we had no choice, really. Events conspired to us having no other choice but to book with Yemen Air. And that is another story altoghether.
As a result of this delay, we missed our connecting Lion Air flight from Jakarta to Bali; in fact, we landed in Jakarta half an hour
after it had taken off. We then spent the next hour running around like a couple of headless chickens trying to find flights. We tried four different airlines; they were all fully booked and could only offer waiting list options.
After a nerve-racking wait of nearly two hours, we
did get on the next Lion Air flight and arrived at around 9:00 PM Bali time at its dometic airport.
At the resort, we showered, got all giggly over the matching his and hers robe de chambres, marveled at our hotel room, ate what one would internationally consider a typical Indonesian meal - Bakme Goreng for her and Nasi Goreng for him and, finally, afrer 24 hours of traveling, surrendered to the beckoning sheets!
