Flying Iraqi Airways

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy29bZvPVOQ&feature=related&fmt=18


July 13, 2011 Mousa Baraka Leave a comment Go to comments

You arrive in Dubai. You stroll through Duty Free pondering whether or not to buy another bottle of perfume that you’ll never use. You go through passport control. He looks at your British passport, at your Iraqi face. He’s confused. He pauses for a second, his eyes moving between the two. He hands you back your passport. ‘Welcome to Dubai, sir’ he says in English.

You need to go to the Iraqi Airways office, because you can’t book online or by phone. To fly from Dubai to Baghdad on Iraqi Airways, you have to buy a ticket from Dubai. Even buying it from Baghdad isn’t an option. But the taxi driver has never heard of Iraqi Airways. Once again another confused face. ‘Behind the Nissan garage’ you say.

You arrive outside the office. You’re sure it’s the right one, not because of the big green sign outside it, but because you can tell the two faces inside are Iraqi. ‘Can I have a ticket for tomorrow to Baghdad please’ you say in Iraqi. ‘No!’ Now you’re the one whose confused. Is she joking? Why is she so angry about it? There are no tickets for tomorrow’ she says while checking on her computer. ‘None for the day after either… Oh no wait, I have one business class for tomorrow’. You feel a little relief, but then you realise she said business class. You remember that business class usually means a lot of money. You know that the normal ticket is $300. ‘How much is that?’ you ask. ‘$400’. You book it straight away.

She takes out a paper ticket. It looks like a bit of scrap paper. She writes something on it in really bad English handwriting. She tells you not to lose the ticket; otherwise you won’t get on the flight. In your mind your hoping she’s joking, and that it says your name somewhere other than the ticket your holding on to, with both hands now. Time to pay. You take out $400. ‘We don’t take dollars’. ‘Pounds’. ‘No’. ‘Iraqi Dinars’. ‘No, only dirhams’. Your confused again. Isn’t this Iraqi Airways? You wonder whether confusion is contagious and whether the taxi driver or the passport control man contaminated you. You haven’t yet exchanged any money, so you reluctantly cough up the AED you have. You go to the hotel to sleep before your flight tomorrow.

It’s an early flight, you have to be at the airport at 5 am. You can see the Iraqi Airways check-in counters miles away. The queue is three times as long as any other flight. You stand in line. You feel a sense of patriotism, all these Iraqis around you in a foreign land. That slowly begins to change, as you see so many of those who were behind you have somehow got in front of you.

You get close to the check-in desk, you hear shouting. An Iraqi voice. ‘Wallah I will close the check-in desks now and let no one go! I told you its international law! No bag can be over 32 kg. Take 12 kgs out of it now’! Its theIraqi Airways man roaming through the desks, manned by Dnata staff. The passenger in the grey suit moves to the back of the queue, angrily. He comes back later just before you reach the desk. He takes your place and puts his bag on the scales. Its 32 kg exactly. They send it through. He puts on his second bag, its 28 kg. He stares down the Dnata worker, and smacks down his diplomatic passport. The Dnata worker pauses for a second, pondering whether to call the Iraqi Airways man again. He sends it through. The grey suited man puts on a third bag, small, wrapped in tape. Its 12 kg exactly.

You get on the flight and walk towards your chair. Someone is sitting on it. You show him your boarding pass and ask to see his. ‘They told me we can sit anywhere’. Who said that I think in my head? Why didn’t they tell me? Why did I pay the $100? He gets up and a cabin crew takes him to his seat right at the back of the plane. Turns out no one told him.

You sit down and still don’t see why business class was $100 more. It’s a slightly bigger chair, but doesn’t even move back. The pilot says the flight will take two and half hours. You’re sure it should be less than that, but by now it’s too late to change to Etihad from Abu Dhabi. Besides, the business class there is $14,000.

You’re at the front of the plane. You hear the pilot shouting. He’s on the radio. ‘I am not happy with this service’ he says in a broken English accent. The cabin crew are crowded at the door. You worry that something is wrong. For a few minutes everything seems tense at the front of the plane. Then it suddenly stops. Everyone starts laughing. You relax again. The cabin crew start the security demonstration. You’re happy that the Iraqis don’t teach you how to put on your belt. They only bother with the oxygen masks. They tell you everything else is on a pixelated copy of a security card. The text on the card isn’t readable.

The flight gets going, and it seems like everyone is going to sleep. It was an early start, so you decide to join them. But as you doze off you begin to hear a piano in the background. It someone playing it badly. Its more noise than music. You open your eyes and lift your head. Its ten Iraqis snoring. You catch a glimpse of the eyes of the American looking man on the other side of the plane. He hides his smile. Later he decides to join the band, although as its silent instructor.

They bring out the food. You’re the only one eating. Everyone else is sound asleep. You ask what it is. ‘Egg and meat’. You’re satisfied. Makhlama you think, one of my favourites. Out comes a plate with an omelette and a sausage. You remember you’re British and that this is good food too. You take a bite. It hasn’t been cooked properly, or its been left overnight. Or both. You then realise why everyone went to sleep so quickly. Seasoned travellers. You decide to join them again, as hard as it may be.

You’re still only half asleep and half awake. You see one of the cabin crew playing on his mobile. You must be dreaming. You’re confused again, and start to wander what life was like before you got confused so often. You try to sleep again.

You wake up. The plane is just about to land. The pilot isn’t so bad and it’s a smooth landing. All the cabin crew take out their phones and start making phone calls. The plane hasn’t stopped moving. Behind you hear all the passengers opening up their belts and getting their bags. The plane hasn’t stopped moving! They try to move to the front of the plane. The cabin crew stop them just before business class. They protect you from the masses. Then you realise why you paid the $100.

You arrive in Baghdad and take out your Iraq passport. The passport control officer says they need to bring someone. You get worried. Maybe I should have bought that bottle of perfume in Dubai and given it to him. It turns out the officer can’t let you in, or anyone else in for that matter. Someone has to come in and check their work (work?) and let you through.

You realise that switching to your Iraqi passport isn’t a mere switching of papers. The Iraqi Airways flight has reminded you how different life is in Iraq. You remember that being a British in a land of Iraqis isn’t as easy as it sounds.

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