As you may know by now, my brother Nick is here with me. He opted for a pit-stop in the land of Porsche Cayennes, sand and dish-dashes before he goes onto Brisbane, Australia for some more shenanigans. This time on his own. Thsi post will entirely be set at the airport as we spent half of the time there.
The story starts when he came in from Paris, France on Thursday. Landed safely after being looked after by our award-winning cabin crew… sipping high on pepsis, watching countless movies. Dubai airport will be a state of the art facility once they open the new Emirates Terminal (#3) with marble flooring, fountains, diamond encrusted X-ray machines and all the things you’d expect from an oil rich country like the United Arab Emirates. But unfortunately, he landed in the has-been has-beyond-well-been Terminal 1. He stood around 50 minutes in the queue for immigration, then was greeted by thousands of people when he got out of customs and out into the astonishing heat and kerfuffle that is the meeting point on the ground level. It was heaving with Pakistanis, Indians, lost/amazed westerners, crazy taxis, and the loads from every single flight coming in at this peak hour in the day (2 o’clock in the morning that is. Yes Dubai Intl. is open 24hours, unlike other French airports doing the 9 to 5). Thankfully, and this is a true blessing knowing my brother, he had his phone charged up full and working. I managed to call him while he was waiting to get his passport stamped and briefed him professionally on how to find me in this human swamp. I told him I would stand away from the sweat and shouting near the taxi rank. He did reach the exit and found me after an hour and a half waiting for him. I did spend my time peaking at the mahraba service desk to see the new crew faces (Funny thing is that we saw them the next day in Mall Of The Emirates buying DU mobile phones).
Got back home and slept. The next day was spent strolling around the Mall for some swimming gear and then headed back to Sheikh Zayed for some grubs. My brothers hands were swelling with the heat, kind of weird but terribly funny. I don’t need much to amuse myself, thats a fact.
Ok back to the airport after a short stop for him to prepare for his flight over to Down Under. Brissie as they call it. Everything went according to plan until Nick had to wait for an OK GO from check-in so he could board the EK flight. He did weigh his bag just in case, got a beautiful tag for his rucksack even, but as he was flying on a subload ticket meaning, we obviously paid less for it, we were not sure if he’d get on or not. And the loads being overbooked as always, with 3 stops along the way (Singapore, Brisbane then Auckland) there was absolutely no way for him to get a seat on that flight. It also works with seniority, my seniority. As I’ve been here for 7 months, I was at the bottom of the social E-ticketing hierarchy. He didn’t make it. After all that stress, waiting around for 2 hours with the pressure of my brother being anxious as he is and stuff I nearly had a breakdown……. big lols after when I look back at the experience now.
With all the next days flights as packed as the one he tried to board. I didn’t want to spend our time in cabs going back and forth from home and the airport. I, in a moment of desperation walked up the Dnata Ticketing desk to ask for all other possible options for BNE (Brisbane). I got a “The computer says no + caugh” for all of this weeks EK flights. But with a ray of the morning sunshine on her face, she smiled when she brought up the Singapore Airline data. A [caugh] couple dihrams [caugh] later, Nick had a firm ticket for Brisbane with one of the best airlines around. Singapore girls will take good care of my brother I’m sure. I doubt he’ll have a minute of sleep because of that too. But hey, at least we can now say “Yesssss, I off to Brisbane and I HAVE A DAAAAAAATE !”.
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Not to mention whilst doing all of that, I met PP (misses from the Pink Poodle blog) on her way to sunny, relaxed Malta. Big up to you ! Have a nice time there ! And again thanks to Lauren, Melissa & Mat for their precious information on “how to” navigate around Dubai Airport and the secrets of subload ticketing.
God it felt like an eternity writting this post. Hope you enjoyed your day as much as we did, or hopefully better. Oh! And after dumping brother at the airport tomorrow, I’ll finally be able to get ready for my Paris stint. Mum, Dad, don’t go thinking you could get rid of your sons that quickl. When one goes, another comes in ! I’m back !!! mwahahahahahahah.
PS: Thanks Tina for posting numerous links out there on forums and yahoo answers. I don’t know you but I would definately hire you as PR !!! Thanks again, really appreciated.
My question (feel free to laugh): What the heck is subload ? is that a term for stand by ?
yeah it’s basically a non confirmed ticket based on seats left on aircraft.