TK647 IST-BEN 21 NOV 11 (ECONOMY)
Posted: 23 Nov 2011, 21:48TK647
IST-BEN
B737-800
***Photos now added!!!***
After touching down on my first leg at 06:30, and leaving the plane at 06:45 (15 minutes before this flight was supposed to take off!!!) I sprinted through security to the gate. The agent at the gate asked about my visa and I showed him the paperwork and explained the Arabic. He thought for a moment and then said "OK! Go!" I ran out the door and on the the waiting bus. They had held the flight for us! (There were about 7 or 8 of us who were on the London flight). As there is only one flight per day, they probably decided it was easier to hold the flight for 20 or 30 minutes rather than rebook all of us.
Totally out of breath after sprinting through Istanbul Airport T1 (which is huge!) with a 20kg backpack with cameras, a laptop, and body armour, I got on the bus. It was a 5 or 10 minute bus ride to the plane with no gangway, just air stairs. As I was boarding, I saw a luggage trolly pull up to the plane, so I was hopeful our bags would make it (we were told they should) but more on that later...
Now about the plane....it was old. I don't know the registration, so I couldn't tell you how old, but there was no seat back IFE (just those old flip down LCD monitors). The seats were the old blue leather style and you could tell the plane was showing it's age. Though I don't blame them for operating this route with an older plane, I'm not so sure if I owned an airline I'd want to operate a route with a new plane to a country just out of a civil war.
I had picked seat 4A earlier, but that was already taken by someone. I wasn't really in the mood to ask for it back, so I just walked to the back of the plane where I had an entire row to myself. I ended up sitting in front of a BBC producer and we got talking for a bit. As it turns out he lives about a 15min walk from me in London. Small world!
Pushback was at 07:30 with takeoff just a few minutes after. I got a very nice view of the morning sun over Istanbul and more great views as we flew south over the Greek Islands with the mountain tops just poking through the clouds.
Shortly after takeoff breakfast menus were handed out along with headphones. Breakfast was also good, and huge. About 1000000 times bigger than the breakfast you get in VS Y! The eggs, were good. They appeared a bit rubbery, but didn't taste rubbery and were actually flavourful. The turkey ham toastie was also nice, along with the yoghurt and the olives were fresh and flavourful. Also the orange juice was real, not the bitter stuff you get with VS, but fresh, sweet juice.
I fell asleep again for a little bit after breakfast and woke up about 15 minutes away from the Libyan coast. (Pictures below.)
We did a bit of circling above Benghazi, slowly getting lower and lower and passed about 500ft above a huge tank ammunition dump just sitting there in the middle of the desert...(unguarded of course). Landing was pretty smooth. As we taxied in, I was surprised about the lack of military hardware at the airport (this is an air force base after all), with only one old soviet MiL helicopter and a Mig-21 visible.
I gathered up my bag and walked off the plane to a nice 15degree sunny day. There was one other plane loading bound for Cairo (one of the only flights of the day), but other than that, not much activity at the airport.
We walked the 50-75m to the terminal...which was falling apart. Our bags were x-rayed upon entering, and my bag was searched yet again, though again just a cursory search. Then I walked up the stairs the the immigration hall where there were two queues, one for Libyan passport holders, and another for everyone else.
Both queues move fairly quickly and I was seen in about 5 minutes. There were no computers or any sort of passport scan...at all. Just a guy who wasn't even in a uniform checking the passports and stamping them. I showed him my passport and my visa which he looked at for a second and then said ok and to wait.
He saw everyone else (who already had their official visas) and then we walked down to baggage reclaim. He said he would be back in a minute and went into the office next door to check on my paperwork. He returned a few minutes later with my passport which had been approved and stamped. (See picture below. The stamp on the lower right covering the French stamp). So there I was, admitted to the country without an official visa (though according the the NTC at least, it was official) which was nice as it saved me £70 as that is the visa fee for a single entry visa if I were to have gotten it at the embassy in London.
Now about my bag...Baggage reclaim is in a small dirty room with a conveyor belt not much bigger than a king size bed. There are lots of missing ceiling tiles and wires sticking out everywhere. Bags are x-rayed in a back room and then placed on the one and only belt. I waited for my bag, and waited, and waited. And surprise, surprise, it never came. Not that I expected it to with 15 minutes between connections. I filled out a missing bag report in the lost and found office, where one guy does all the reporting, so I had to wait 10 or 15 minutes to file my report as the 4 or 5 other people who's bags were also lost filled out theirs.
Once that was done, my fixer and I went to his car, where I called my other fixer who is currently in Ireland, on my satellite phone (my only working phone) to get the address for the hotel he had booked me into. Once I got to the hotel and checked in, I walked to the Tibesty Hotel, where the Turkish Airlines office is, to see about my bag. I was told it should arrive the next day and they would call me. A bit annoyed, but happy they were looking into it, I left and went out and ate some lunch.
The next morning I went back to the office and asked again, only to be told they didn't receive a call saying it had been loaded in IST and arrived in BEN. But they said that doesn't mean it isn't here. Annoyed again (mostly because it has all my clothes, the other part of my body armour, and a day backpack) I went back to my hotel, where they were very helpful and called their friend at the airport, who said it had arrived. The manager drove me to the airport, and it was there, body armour and everything else still inside! Happy to have gotten my bag, I left and we went back to the hotel.
I'm writing this report from my hotel (The Al-Raha Inn) to the occasional music of celebratory automatic gunfire...
- celebratory, or not, automatic gunfire is still pretty hairy 
.
That way as a worried mother you can always reach her (nevermind that it costs about £2-£6/min to call one!)If she has any questions about photojournalism or anything similar, I'd be happy to answer them. There is a link to my website on my profile and my email is in the contact section of my site.
Makes me pleased to be doing what I am doing and not travelling to battle zones 