If I may digress for just a moment the whole process of getting a flight to Africa this time was a Delta mess. Frankly if I hadn’t been sitting on 2.4 million sky miles with Diamond status I would not have flown Delta this trip.
When Delta started cancelling the Atlanta to Johannesburg flights I was originally safe with a planned departure of Sunday June 6th. Well like everyone else I waited for the ax to fall and it did. The Diamond status got me the chance to talk with a real person for nearly an hour while she rebooked flights with partner airlines. I even got some miles back in t.he process. I was to fly Kansas City Atlanta to Paris on Delta, Paris to Johannesburg on Air France then spend the night and catch Air Link to Windhoek the next morning. Coming home was to have been AirLink to Johannesburg, Virgin Atlantic to London, Delta to Detroit then back to KC. So trying to go through Paris and London with guns was a non starter for me so I will use the outfitters rifle. Then A week ago Virgin Atlantic canceled their flight. So it was back on the phone with the Diamond Desk for an hour to rebook the return through Amsterdam on KLM.
Arrived at the Kansas City Airport only to get a check in agent who struggled with documents. She couldn’t understand that the South African Health Questions were done online. So she had to call someone in Atlanta to get approvals. Finally tickets were issued with “DOCS-OK” on them. Well I get to the gate in Atlanta and they call for Business Class boarding. I step forward only to be turned back by an agent who says you have to get in line and be verified. I told here that was done in Kansas City but she was having none of it. So I get in line with 270 people to be verified. Guess what…..all they wanted to see was my COVID test results and that I had done the South Africa Health Survey online. Boarded the plane and waited for over an hour to depart.
Wheels up was 1 hour past departure time. Glad I had a nine hour layover in Paris.
