Indirect

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On my first mission trip to Kenya, in 2004, we flew American Airlines from the U.S. to London and then British Airways from London to Nairobi. I’ve always wanted to visit the U.K., and so it was frustrating to be on the ground but stuck in Heathrow Airport!

In 2005 and 2006, we flew Northwest Airlines to Amsterdam and then KLM from Amsterdam to Nairobi. The nice thing about this is that we had long layovers on the return trip, and there’s a bus tour of the city which leaves from the airport and is designed to get you back in time for your flight, so at least we weren’t cooling our heels.

This year, the team has a hodgepodge of different travel arrangements. The itinerary as originally issued to LEAMIS by the travel agent called for me and at least two of my teammates to fly Northwest / KLM through Amsterdam, as in the past, but then for the return flight we were booked on Delta’s brand new direct flight from Nairobi to Atlanta, with a refueling stop at Dakar, Senegal.

Delta has acquired Northwest, of course, and both airlines (along with KLM) are part of the SkyTeam alliance, so I had the entire trip accounted for under my Delta frequent flyer number.

I would obsessively check the reservations online every few days. I’d already picked a seat assignment for the return trip, but the outbound trips are operated by KLM, which doesn’t let you pick your seats online quite as far in advance. I kept checking back to see if I could pick my seats yet.

Today, when I went to the Delta site, I noticed that my return Nairobi-to-Atlanta trip was mysteriously missing from the itinerary. I did a little checking online and discovered that the direct Nairobi-to-Atlanta run, which was supposed to have started June 2, was blocked at the very last minute by TSA, which had security concerns.

I am sure that Delta, in conjunction with LEAMIS’s travel agent, will work out alternate arrangements, presumably through Amsterdam (although Air France is also part of SkyTeam, so Paris is another possibility). I’m not the one who dealt with the travel agent, and so I don’t want to contact her directly without talking to Gail first. But right now, I’m looking at my itinerary and I don’t have a return flight booked, which is going to bug me until it gets resolved.

Oh, well. Maybe I’ll get to take the Amsterdam bus tour again. :)

  • http://www.achairandtwoapples.com/ kcwc

    paris, paris.
    get a long layover and let your luggage go on ahead. unfortunately orly is pretty far out, but sling your backpack over your shoulder, go down to the ile de france and see notre dame and the little stained-glass chapel in the police station. Picnic in the tiny park like the prow of a ship at the end of the island. Go over the bridge and take a walk through St Germain if you have time.
    I did this once: arrived at Orly in the morning, took the metro into town, found the only station in town that had lockers for my suitcase (Montmartre, I think — and it was not the station my train was leaving from, so I had to do some commuting), wandered around in a bit of a haze, and made my evening train to Rome with no problem. I did wake up with an obnoxious Italian in the compartment, but that's another story. (And there were sunflowers out the window, so that helped).
    After Africa, it will completely blow your mind.

  • http://www.achairandtwoapples.com/ kcwc

    paris, paris.
    get a long layover and let your luggage go on ahead. unfortunately orly is pretty far out, but sling your backpack over your shoulder, go down to the ile de france and see notre dame and the little stained-glass chapel in the police station. Picnic in the tiny park like the prow of a ship at the end of the island. Go over the bridge and take a walk through St Germain if you have time.
    I did this once: arrived at Orly in the morning, took the metro into town, found the only station in town that had lockers for my suitcase (Montmartre, I think — and it was not the station my train was leaving from, so I had to do some commuting), wandered around in a bit of a haze, and made my evening train to Rome with no problem. I did wake up with an obnoxious Italian in the compartment, but that's another story. (And there were sunflowers out the window, so that helped).
    After Africa, it will completely blow your mind.