Tag Archives: Nairobi

Jun 24

The professionals

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LEAMIS has always booked the travel for my previous foreign trips, and even on this trip — with me as co-leader — it was Gail Drake who originally dealt with the travel agent. But since our uncertainty over the return flight from Nairobi, I’ve been included in the loop of messages from our travel agent, Heather at MTS Travel, and I have to say that so far, I’m thoroughly impressed by her attitude and her customer service. MTS Travel specializes is mission trip and relief work travel — according to its web site, it originally grew out of a Mennonite church agency. It now works with a broad spectrum of groups and denominations and has access to special fares intended for mission or relief work.

Heather is trying to sort through the sometimes-conflicting information she’s getting from Delta. She has customers in Nairobi right now and says the airline people at Jomo Kenyatta Airport seem to be on top of the situation (more so, in fact, than the reservations people here stateside); the folks at the airport are making alternate travel arrangements for anyone who happens to arrive in Nairobi without knowing about the problems with the Nairobi-to-Atlanta route. But, obviously, it would be preferable to get a new itinerary worked out before we leave, and Heather is on the case.

Naturally, what we want to happen here is for the airline to make the changes, since the it’s their responsibility, so that we can avoid any fees. Yes, we can always get a refund and book alternate passage ourselves, but that would be more costly and would be only an emergency last resort.

Jun 23

Flight update

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Well, our travel agent is waiting to hear from Delta about replacing our return trip from Nairobi to Atlanta. It’s possible we won’t hear until closer to the trip, since Delta may still hold out hope of a resolution which would allow them to launch the direct flights.

And, to my North Carolina sister-in-law, I’m not setting the schedule and wouldn’t be able to engineer a getaway for myself into the City of Lights, even if we do end up changing planes in Paris. But thanks for putting that idea into my head. Now, however we end up getting back to the States, I’ll feel cheated. :)

Jun 20

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. :)

Jan 10

Kenya update

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Debra Snellen has forwarded me an e-mail from Pastor Paul, our contact in Nairobi. As I mentioned in a column in the T-G this week, LEAMIS could not get in touch with Paul during the height of the election crisis in Kenya.

Paul pastors a church in the Kibera slums, a heart-breaking sardine can of 1 million people (or more, depending on who’s estimating) on the edge of Nairobi. It was the focus of some of last week’s violence:

Out of the Kibera slums alone we have more than 20,000 people rendered homeless and hungry due to the on going skirmishes. As a church we are doing all possible to offer any kind of assistance in terms of food and clothing to the victims of this tragedy.

[snip]

Paul’s wife Grace runs a clothing shop:

As earlier stated, the church facility, the school and the orphanage home are all intact and the boys are safe by the grace of God. However, if you can remember Grace’s small shop where Rebecca works … it was seriously looted and burnt down to the ground along with others on the same street. Right now we are trying to see how to reconstruct another one on the same location if possible. This rebuilding exercise will cost us approximately USD 1,800 due to the current inflated cost of timber and iron sheet material.

Your prayers are solicited.