KQ should treat all passengers with dignity

After a tedious two-hour drive from town, I arrived at the airport at 7.30pm last Thursday evening, just in time to check in for the 8.40pm flight KQ624 to Mombasa. I was joined in the airline lounge by several members of the National Assembly and the Senate, plus the speakers of the two Houses, booked on the same flight.

 As you would invariably expect, the flight was delayed to shortly after 9 pm. As we went through the boarding gate, the airline staff asked for identity documents. The Senator for Bungoma, Moses Wetang’ula, did not have an ID card but nonetheless was given back his boarding pass and we proceeded to board the aircraft.

Shortly after, all passengers were on board and safety messages boomed across the screen and we settled in for departure. An irate airline staff then came up to Senator Wetang’ula in the business class and demanded he disembarks, in a rather very discourteous manner that soon caught the attention of the other passengers.

They demanded he leaves the aircraft because he did not produce his identity card. Attempts by the two speakers and other leaders that they can positively identify the former Foreign Affairs minister and the Senate Minority Leader fell on deaf ears. Not even the intervention by the aircraft captain who knew the senator positively could convince the staff who clearly were determined that the Senator gets off the aircraft.

After around 10 pm, the captain announced that there was a security breach and all passengers must alight from the aircraft, together with their carry-on bags and proceed back to the lounge. And then a long wait ensued as we waited for the rear aircraft door to be opened as the altercation in the business class continued. The Senator had offered his frequent-flyer gold platinum card together with several credit cards but they declined.

Eventually, the captain announced we must alight and we did just as the local police were called in to get the VIPs off the plane. The economy class passengers had no idea what the security breach was about, and several passengers panicked, concerned that there may be a bomb on the aircraft. As the rear door opened, a young woman seated next to me thought it was the sound of an explosion and overran me in my seat!

At the lounge, we had to wait until midnight as they sought to ready another aircraft. Sen Wetangula later found an alternative identity document with his picture and flew with us. Just the usual airline apology by the hostess about the airline take-off delay.

No senior management of the listed company came to the lounge or the aircraft to offer an explanation or apology to the nearly 100 passengers whose time was wasted and flight messed up. We did not matter to the airline; it’s a sort of monopoly on the route and it has taken us all for granted. Clearly, it was a display of arrogance by some pretty junior staff, and utter disrespect and indifference to the passengers.

 

Was it necessary for the airline to behave in this manner on a simple matter of identifying oneself? I think Kenya Airways staff at the boarding gate had an ulterior motive, to embarrass and humiliate the Senator. He is a VIP and they knew him.

There is no law barring anyone without an identity card from boarding an aircraft on a domestic flight, nor is such a card a travel document on local flights as per IATA rules. In most countries, one needs only a boarding pass to board a domestic flight. Many leaders offered to vouch for his identity but they contemptuously declined. And how does such an incident become a security breach? He was in the terminal building and the lounge all along, without an identity; did he present a security risk all this time and were the lives of all the people in the terminal at risk?

For a company that prides itself as an international airline quoted on East African stock exchanges, its handling of this incident raises fundamental questions about its compliance with corporate governance principles, and specifically its customer service policies.

The airline enjoys preferential treatment in accessing and leasing the public facilities at our major airports although the state owns just over 26 per cent. The government brands it as a national airline, negotiates and secures routes for it in other countries and prioritises it in business transactions and other privileges. It is imperative for Kenyans to appreciate and recognise their leaders and senior public servants. The Kenya Airways staff abused their powers and must offer apology to the leaders, and the passengers on flight 624.