By Ibrahim Sheriff, Houston, Texas, United States of America
FREETOWN, July 27 (232News) – This is not what every well-meaning Sierra Leonean will wish for his/her country but based on the prevailing existential evidence at the Lungi International Airport in Sierra Leone, the country’s air travelers are vulnerable to an imminent airplane catastrophe if the current evidential trend is not discontinued or controlled. In the same instance, it is a moral obligation on the part of some of us who have either been victims or witnesses to very dangerous travel ploy by airline/airport workers to blow whistle on what may lead to a catastrophic outcome someday soon with a magnitude that could be compared to either the 2015 Ebola crisis or the 2017 mudslide, or even worse.
Let us start with some basics about the importance of safety in air travel. Everywhere in the world where airplanes fly, we see airlines and airport authorities stringently enforcing safety measures, and especially regarding baggage weight limits. The reason for this is obvious. More weight on the plane means less for fuel. In other words, weight on an airplane drives how much fuel an airplane needs for a flight. For those of us who often travel by air, we see flight attendants or airline staff doing a head count of passengers before the plane takes off. They do so to ensure that the weight and balance of the airplane can be calculated. Most often, passengers are charged extra for excess baggage. Even so, such excess baggage allowed in the flight must remain in compliance with the overall weight limit of the entire plane – a reason why airline/airport management oversees that weight limit rules for airplanes are strictly followed. Where such excess baggage goes over the weight limit of the airplane, we often see where either passengers, baggage, or cargoes are offloaded from a plane and rescheduled to another flight with lesser weight. These steps are stringently taken by airline and airport staff as a safety measure to ensure that flights take off and reach their destinations safely. In fact, weight limit is such an important factor in the flight business that Air Samoa currently weighs its passengers and issue them tickets by their weights. FinAir asks passengers to volunteer to be weighed. This is not done in the west though because weight is a contentious issue. So, they use an assumed average weight for passengers. Those assumptions have led to the crash of small planes. So, enforcing weight limits rules for airplanes is not merely for the airlines to make money by charging for excess baggage, rather, it is an important safety measure that saves human lives.
Now, at the Lungi International Airport, it becomes worrisome every day when travelers outside of the country are greeted by people claiming to be working for the airport with portable scales, posturing as helpers to travelers. Most, who have never flown in an airplane before, are mostly aggressive, interruptive, and dismissive of any airplane safety measures especially around weight limits. When they meet passengers, they try their best to trick them into believing that their luggage is over-weight, but they have an innovative way of organizing the overweight luggage, so they pass through weight checks and get into the airplanes. There are others inside of the airport – in uniforms – who have direct phone linkage with the airline ticket and baggage attendants. A very well-organized syndicate. Let me share my experience with you on my last trip outside of Sierra Leone. And everyone, I am not sharing my experience because I want to get anyone into trouble. Rather, mine is to blow whistle on some dangerous activity that has the potential to cause serious plane crash that may lead to the loss of several lives.
My vehicle got me into the airport departure terminal parking lot way ahead of the time of my flight. As soon as my vehicle stopped, we were immediately surrounded by about 5-6 plain clothes and uniformed men who posed to be working for the airport. Upon asking one who was pushing a baggage cart to assist me with my luggage into the terminal, he told me that my bags were over the acceptable weight. I had weighed all my bags, and I knew that I was entitled to two check-in bags, one carry-on bag, and my computer backpack. So, there was one extra bag which I knew I was going to pay excess for. And according to Air Brussels (SN Air)’s policy on excess baggage from Freetown (FNA) to the traveler’s destination, the airline charges US$130 (Approx. Le1,300,000) for an excess bag of 32 kilograms or 70 pounds. I arrived at the airport ready to pay this amount for the extra bag that I had. Upon offloading my bags from the vehicle, the mobile weight checkers tried their best to convince me to re-organize my luggage so they could compress everything into two bags instead of the three I had. I insisted that I will only pay for one excess bag. I left them outside of the parking lot and got inside of the terminal. Upon arrival inside of the departure terminal, I was greeted by uniformed staff who told me they will organize my luggage, and everything will end up getting through the baggage checking terminal. I was very curious to understand what they were doing. This was my own individual way of testing the security and safety of travelers outside of our country. Three female and one male uniformed staff descended upon me, noisily spoke from every angle, and tried to confuse me on helping get my bags through. I repeatedly told them that I only needed to weigh my bags and pay for one excess bag. They told me that if I did so, I was going to end up paying US400 (Approx. Le4,000,000) for the bags. Still bent on pursuing my curiosity, I let them do their thing. So, they re-packed my bags and totaled them into 2 bags instead of 3. How did they do it? They bought a big “Ghana-Must-Go” bag, emptied my excess bag into the “Ghana-Must-Go”, mixed them up with some dry fish I was carrying from the other bag. Within 15 minutes, my 3 check-in bags became 1 bag plus a “Ghana-Must-Go” bag, and also re-packed my carry-on bag that was now a check-in bag. So, I was only going to carry my computer backpack into the plane with me. While all of this is going on, the head of the syndicate was on the phone informing the airline ticket and baggage attendants about what was going on with my luggage. Behind me in the distance was a white guy who was checking travel itineraries. He was not paying attention to any of what was going on, and he seemed to trust his staff very well. He checked my itinerary, and it was time for me to check in my bags. Upon arrival at the check-in, I was already known. The staff there asked me to place my bags on the scale – for the sake of protocol. 1 bag, 1 “Ghana-Must-Go”, and my carry-on bag were all checked in to destination, with a strict warning that I must pay for the service rendered to me. All 3 bags were over the weight limit.
Still curious, I must make some sacrifices to get to the bottom of things. So, I have just forfeited 1 regular-sized, fairly new traveling bag because I was asked to leave them at the airport. I asked my “helpers” what was going to happen to my other bag that was just emptied. They told me it was my help to them. Now, they asked me to pay for the service. I asked how much was the service? They told me it was US200 (Approx. Le2,000,000) for the bags just checked-in, and any consideration to them for re-organizing my bags. I further asked whether the US200 was going to be paid to SN Brussels. They moved me from a location where there was a camera installed and taping everything to where there was no recording of our conversation. They told me that the US200 was for those who helped check-in the bags at the baggage check-in terminal, and that it was mandatory for me to pay the amount. At the time of these activities, I had Le1,500,000 cash and US100 MoneyGram cash transfer code number with me. I told them about my money predicament. They asked me to give a picture of my ID and the MoneyGram code, plus Le1,000,000 for the airline baggage and ticket attendants. They were confident that they will cash the money the next day while I was gone. I also gave them Le200,000 for re-organizing my bags. Before I finally went through immigration to get into the departing terminal, I told the syndicate runners that I learnt a lot from them, and that they should be looking for publication of our transactions in national newspapers across the country. I let them know that their actions were detrimental to the safety of the travelers, a corrupt practice, and a bad representation of the current government that is fighting to rid the country of such corruption. Of course, I left them very confused.
Throughout my ordeals at the airport, I noticed that airplanes that depart Lungi International Airport are all always overloaded, with both airline and airport staff engaging in blatant corrupt practices that undermine government’s fight against corruption at all levels of the country. It is clear that every traveler that has made it through the departure terminal at the FNA has either gone through the same ordeals I went through or may have seen empty bags laying around the scale area of the terminal. These are bags travelers are leaving behind as their excess baggage are re-organized and loaded into the flights disregarding safety measures and weight limits. And going back to our basics on the importance of safety in flights, especially with weight limits, by all indications, Sierra Leone is not observing airline safety protocols about those weight limits. Hence, planes are leaving Sierra Leone without a balanced weight, and this may contribute to either less fuel in those planes or may be a cause for an imminent airplane crash that may cause lives – may the Lord forbid. This is a real cause for alarm, and aviation or airport authorities are to take immediate and stringent actions to stop the practice, or we will again be a ground for another catastrophe that draws the attention of the world to us.
©Sheriff, Ibrahim – Houston, Texas, USA
