Mad Air

Standing at baggage claim recently at the hectic Atlanta airport I was reminded of a day when I landed in Fort Dauphin, Madagascar on a flight that originated in the capital city of Antananarivo.  I had been in country for a week already up in the northern sections of the country tracking various species of lemurs and was then headed down to the southern part of the country to Berenty; one of the few places one can find ring-tailed lemurs living wild.

 

I boarded a Madagascar Air - formally known as Madair - regional airplane filled to max capacity of about fifty people.  We flew over the mountains and coast of this island nation before descending to our destination.  As we got closer to the runway I saw a small building I assumed was the airport.  From my window seat I saw people running towards the airport from all points of the compass.  The airport seemed to only consist of a lone runway and a single building.

 

After the plane came to a stop, a staircase was wheeled to the plane.  Once down the stairs and across the hot tarmac the passengers were directed to an open room inside the beige cinder block structure to await our luggage.  There was a raggedly dressed man doing construction work on the inside of that dirt floored room.  He stopped what he was working on when we entered the room and walked to our plane.  There was a second man in the room who was sound asleep lying on scaffolding on the far side of the room.  The other man returned from the plane with one piece of luggage.  He dragged it lazily into the room we were all standing in and call out the tag number.  Once that piece of luggage was claimed he went back out to the plane to get another.  The process of shuffling back out to the plane to get one piece of luggage at a time, bring it into that room and call out the tag number was repeated numerous times almost in slow motion.  All the while his co-worker slept on the scaffolding occasionally snoring causing the room full of amazed tourist to break out in laughter as we awaited our luggage. 

 

Finally, I claimed my backpack and proceeded on my journey.  Ten days later I was once again transported to this airport; a term I use for this place only because airplanes do take off and land there.  I was a bit early for my flight back to Antananarivo and literally it was me and two other people - also tourist – there; no one else, not a worker in site; no ticket agent, no gate agent, no air traffic controller, not even the man napping on the scaffolding was to be found.  After about thirty minutes of conversing with the other tourists, a loud whistle sounded.  At first the other tourists and I weren't sure what the sound was for; incoming scud missile perhaps – ducking was considered, even running for cover.  But within minutes of the whistle sounding people ran to the building from various places surrounding us, and then low and behold we saw a plane come into view and land.  The local people had come from the surrounding village to work the flight, so to speak, and were advised of the plane’s pending arrival via the whistle.  After the people on that flight were off loaded, their luggage gathered one at a time and handed over to the next batch of tourist, we were checked in and loaded then off to our next destination.  The villagers then returned to their daily life until the next alarm sounded advising of the arrival of the next plane filled with passengers. 

 

The experience makes even Hartsfield Jackson International Airport – the world’s busiest – seem docile and orderly.