I hate Kulula.fuckin'com...period...
Until yesterday, they were my choice of cheapy-airlines. Now, they can go to hell. I'll fly into Joburg International and have a choice of carriers from now on.
I was out of bed on Monday morning, of all days, at 4am to catch the 6am red-eye to Shit Towne for a day of business with a client and my good friend,
Wreckless.
I landed at just on 08h00, but thanks to the morning Shit Towne traffic, I get to the client facility at a little before 09h30. Things are not going too swimmingly and I reiterate to myself why we left that horrible fuckin' place in the first place.
Anyway...we have a session with the client and a cup of mediocre coffee, then retire to our allocated office for a bit of work. We have a proposal to develop and get to them by Friday...do-able, I think.
I was advised to leave the centre of Shit Towne at a little before 3pm to make the flight in time, so I do exactly that. Later I would ask myself why the hell I did. Hindsight is 20/20 vision, and all that.
Another good mate,
Fishman, texts me to ask "where are we drinking?" and I tell him I have to fly out that afternoon and can he meet me at the airport to have a quick drink and catch up on some of the news.
Literally five minutes from the airport,
Fishman texts me again and asks where I am. He's already in the airport. The man is thirsty for a Monday.
Almost at the same time, I get a text on my phone, "Hi, from Kulula.com. Apologies, your flight for today has been delayed, new estimated time of departure is @18h30..."
Mumbling a little, I think, "Ok, not too bad, another hour or so to drink with Fishman" and continue on to the airport bar.
As we get down to the end of our second beer, I get another text, "Hi, from Kulula.com. Your flight has been further delayed to @20h25...". This time, no apologies....hmmmm....
"Ah fuck!", I think to myself.
Fishman has to leave cos it's his government's girls night out and he has to babysit, so I'm left on my own. I order a munchies basket and another Capn's Organ and Coke Light, figuring I may as well get comfortable for a while as it's only just gone 17h30 and I have another three fuckin' hours to kill.
I potter about a bit on the internet, do some more email, and then with an hour to go, move down to the departure lounge figuring I'm going to be one of the first to claim my seat on that fuckin' plane.
At 20h00, there's an announcement, barely audible, that "Kulula.com is pleased to announce that flight {mumble mumble} is boarding for Cape Town", so myself and a hundred other hopefuls make a dash for the queue. Then we hear that there is another Cape Town flight, which was supposed to have left three hours after us, is actually going to leave an hour before us!! WTF!!!!
We all sit down again, pick up another section of discarded newspaper (the business section of all things) and grind our teeth through another hour of waiting.
At 20h30, the announcement finally comes over the PA system, or at least we think it's for us. It has to be, as there is barely enough people left in the room to fill half a Cessna so it's unlikely that there is another flight out of Lanseria tonight. We all get into the queue again and watch the rain and lightning outside on the tarmac. A typical summer Shit Towne storm had come through in the last hour or so and I was fully believing that Kulula.fuckin'com would use that as an excuse to delay us even more.
Not so. We get checked through then herded onto the sopping runway, with no umbrellas, to make our own way to the aircraft about 100m away. We get there quite wet, only to find a whole basket load of umbrellas standing in the rain waiting to be used. Thanks, Kulula.fuckin'com....thanks for nothing.
As mentioned, there was not even half an airplane full of people on the flight, when we eventually left the runway at 21h12 exactly. Actually, it made for a very comfortable flight, as I had a whole emergency aisle row to myself, extra leg room and space to stretch.
We landed in Cape Town at just before 11pm and you could hear a collective sigh of relief when the doors opened and spewed us out onto the windy tarmac. I still had almost an hour to go for the drive home and I pulled into the driveway at 23h50, having been awake for almost
20 hours.
And Kulula.fuckin'com's excuse for the delay? "Technical problems". Ha...yeah, fuckin' right. I'm no dummy, next time tell me what the fuckin' problem was, then I might be a little more understanding and accepting of your excuse, you miserable bunch of twats...
On top of it all, there was no mention of some sort of rebate on the flight price, no voucher for a freebie flight for the inconvenience, not even a free drink or sandwich on the plane.
Fuck them...next time, I fly Mango or some other carrier...
