Your national carrier is here ladies and gentlemen. If you are not excited, you have no passport, it is expired or you are simply just a sore-throated hater. Uganda Airlines takes the skies after more than 18 years since its collapse. This new chapter should breathe life into aviation in the region but obviously haters are awake. It is quickly gone from “A New Dawn” to “When Will It Be Done?” Such are your Ugandans! For example, those who said the new planes were just Global Buses with wings, hell is surely waiting for you. So what if the planes are small? Maybe there is no parking space. Did you bother to think about that for a second? Entebbe International Airport is almost the size of a tennis court or perhaps smaller. Your big planes are unnecessary. Or maybe this time round, your luggage will not vanish in thin air. The plane is almost the size of the luggage so they know what they are working with.
Just been wondering to myself what would make a Ugandan airline very Ugandan. Obviously nothing spells Ugandan than the national colours of black, yellow ,red. Plus the elegant crane which gives the airline more personality and the belief that it is something you can trust. It is a shame people always try to embarrass this poor Crane with the same old vices that follow many Ugandans. Let the Crane fly for as long as it can. Allow not the greed of the politician and the disorganisation of the common man to make a mess of something that can bring so much pride to Ugandans and the whole region. This will be hard. The negativity that looms is sky high. But anyway, a Ugandan pilot flying a Ugandan plane with Ugandans on board seems unreal. Which local language would be spoken in the pulpit? That would be chaos to even think about.
There are simply too many languages to choose from, so English would be our rescue. Ugandans pride so much in English but still cannot speak it correctly. It would be interesting to listen to the kind of accent projected through the plane speakers. Was it groomed at Kampala Parents or some primary school in Kawanda? Would anyone feel privileged to be on board or rather feel the urge to buy muchomo through the windows?
And the air hostesses? I would like to hope that they will smile and make passengers feel warm. For some reason, everyone in the service industry is disgruntled and carries their problems to work. Please, however stressed you are, do not bring your problems aboard. You can already tell we are squeezed between seats. If you have a hangover from the radiant beauty of Ethiopian Airlines and RwandAir hostesses, you might want to lower those expectations.
Again, what is a Ugandan airline without Ugandan cuisines such as matooke? Or maybe matooke on a flight is a little aggressive and too original. What do you think? Who cares anyway. Any Ugandan food, I guess. For the drunkards, I am sure UG coco would fly you higher than any plane would. Well, let’s see what this ‘new baby’ has in store for us. So guys, it is time to get passports stamped. You ready?
