Air Botswana

It’s Botswana’s national airline--I’ve flown it a few times, including my initial connection from Jo’burg to Gabs. The airline seems to be awfully good at losing luggage--they even lost Dikembe Matumbo’s (sp? NBA player) luggage on that connection. I’m sure he wasn’t happy, but he would have been much less happy if he’d been on the Air Botswana flight I just took to Francistown. It was probably the smallest commercial plane I’ve ever been on (with the possible exception of that flight in Belize last year where they ran out of seats and put me in the copilot’s seat, complete with my own set of controls). I am not a tall person, and I had to duck, a lot, to make it down the aisle. Some of the men were literally bent at the waist! Everyone was either laughing or grumbling, or both. No overhead compartments for luggage, no loudspeakers, no flight attendants, no bathroom, no seat numbers, no clean windows, just the pilot saying “you all know how to use the seatbelts, right? If we need them, there are exits here and here. See you in Francistown” and sitting down in the (completely open to the main cabin) cockpit. I had a nice view out of the front of plane!

The Francistown airport makes the Kalamazoo airport look like JFK—it’s sort of a glorified portacabin with a tin roof and curtained departure area. I do like Air Botswana though: you can arrive for flights 20-25 minutes before scheduled departures; if there’s no attendant, the pilots leave a box of food and a can of orange soda on everyone’s seat; and there’s no need to remove shoes or computers or anything at all for security. Best of all, in a shockingly un-Botswana-like piece of non-bureaucracy, when I wanted to change my flight back (which could only be done in the airport of departure) the woman tried to send me back to the travel agent, but then just nodded, checked the list, and stuck a hand-written sticker on my ticket. No lines, no long explanations, no fees, no forms, no trips across town. I was shocked! Of course, then I pushed my luck and asked whether Air Botswana had any reciprocal frequent-flier programs. I was directed to visit the head office (not, of course, at the airport) before 3pm to fill out an application to “start the process.” I don’t need the miles that badly!