few days to Christmas of 2007, I left my house to board a Delta flight at the Harrisburg International airport. The flight was to take me to Lagos Nigeria via Atlanta Georgia. I departed my house at exactly 9:00AM even though the flight was to leave by 12:00 noon; I just did not want to take any chances.

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The previous week, a colleague of mine, who traveled via the same route and with Delta airlines, had left a message for me saying that if I wanted to carry any excess bag, I should be sure to go along to the airport with some money to pay for the excess baggage. According to him, he was made to pay for every pound and every baggage he was carrying beyond the allowable. As a result of this, several days before my departure, I went to Delta website and reviewed their luggage policy. A message on the site read that a passenger was entitled to 2-bags free of charge. The caveat was that each bag must weigh 50 pounds or less. It also stated that each passenger was entitled to a carryon baggage not to exceed a certain size and weight. The website confirmed, to my utmost delight, that Delta also accommodated excess baggage. The message on the website on the website was that for each excess baggage weighing 50 pounds or less, the passenger would be charged a $125 excess baggage fee. After reading through the website, I decided to travel with a total of three bags, all weighing 50 pounds or less. For the third bag, which would house the many gifts I was saddled with, I would pay the excess baggage cost of $125.

My wife and I got to the Harrisburg airport about twenty minutes after nine and I quickly disembarked and unloaded my bags. Because we could not park in front of the airport, for obvious security reasons, I requested that she circle around the airport a few times with the car, verify that I had successfully checked in before driving back home. She had her cell phone at the ready to call me and vice versa. Inside the airport and wondering whether they were open yet, I went straight to the Delta checking counter. Two ladies were already behind the counter. One of them explained that I could use the computer system to self-check in myself. I promptly swiped my card and got down to business, punching in the necessary information that the system was requesting of me. Things were going smoothly until Lagos popped up as my final destination. "Your check-in requires special handling", a message came on the screen. Unperturbed, I beckoned to one of the ladies. She took my papers and began to process them.

Half way into the processing, the lady asked how many bags I had. "I have three bags and they all weigh less than 50-pounds each", I said confidently. "I will pay the excess baggage fee on the third bag, in accordance with your policy", I added. "Wait a minute", she intoned frowning and then called over the other lady. She came over and as soon as Nigeria was mentioned as my final destination, the lady quipped, "we can only take two bags weighing 50 pounds or less". "I understand that", I clarified, "so I am paying 125 dollars for the extra bag just as your website stipulated". "No", she echoed nonchalantly, "we have a directive that we cannot accept extra bags for that destination whether the passenger is paying for it or not", she said. "I relied on information on your website to pack three bags and you changed the instructions without duly informing me?" I asked dejectedly. "I don't know what to tell you" she said without looking at me. By then, I could tell that she was feeling disturbed by the repeated questions coming from me. There was no single word of apology from her mouth as she just walked away muttering, "that is our directive and we cannot change it".

My issue was not with the policy, because I strictly comply with policies. The issue was that they moved the goalpost midway into a game and did not have the courtesy to pass the information to the players. Now they were enforcing the policy change as though I should have known. The most upsetting part was that they never displayed any iota of remorse about the level of inconvenience the change would cause me. "What do I do now?" I managed to say to the lady that had my documents without showing the anger that was already bubbling up in me. She shrugged and then said, "if any of your two allowed bags weighs less than 50-pounds, you can transfer some stuff from the extra bag" At this time, a few other passengers had started lining up behind me: I did not want to hold them up so I pushed my bags aside to make way for them.

Knowing that I could not afford to leave behind all the gifts I had, I called my wife on the cell phone. She was still circling the airport. "Are you done checking in?" she asked optimistically? "No", I crooned in anger. "They say I cannot carry three bags" "I thought you were going to pay for the third one?" she inquired innocently. "Yes, but they have now changed their story". I could hear her sigh. I then asked her to find a parking place for the car and come back in to help me sort things out. As I waited for her to come, I weighed my bags and discovered to my delight that they were all slightly less than 50 pounds. Apparently, the scale I used at home was off by a few pounds. I then opened all three bags and while other passengers watched, I moved a couple of things from the third bag into the other two and re-weighed. By the time my wife joined me, we were able to move over a few things to the two allowable bags but left others in the third bag. It simply meant that several people would not get any gifts from us because of the intransigence of Delta Airlines.

After the silly ordeal, I went straight to the departure lounge, sat down and began to contemplate the disappointment I had at the hands of the airline. Delta was a new addition to the string of airlines that recently started direct flights between the USA and Nigeria. I once wrote an article called "In desperate need of a national airline". In that article, I called for Nigeria to establish a national airline that would be plying between the USA and Nigeria to save Nigerians, living in the USA, the humiliation they suffer at the hands of the customs and immigration when they travel through Europe. A direct flight from USA to Nigeria, I had written, would mean reduced airfare for Nigerians. With this frame of mind, when Delta started operations, I was poised to patronize them fully. I saw their emergence as a partial answer to my prayers and those of most Nigerians for direct flights to the country. That was also the reason why I patronized North American Airlines the previous year.

As I sat in the lounge of Harrisburg airport, waiting to commence the first leg of my journey, which was from Harrisburg to Atlanta, I was no longer so sure about my decision to go Delta. I thought about the many gifts I left behind and how disappointed the unlucky ones, whose presents were returned, would be when I got to Nigeria. I Just felt that the first level of service that Delta had offered me, at the beginning of my journey, was not satisfactory nor acceptable. I wondered if they understood the implications of making such drastic changes and not communicating the information to passengers and causing them disappointment and inconveniences. What if my wife did not come with me to the airport, I thought, what would I have done to the baggage that I had to send back home? I kept hoping that the baggage issue would be the last of the inconveniences and disappointments. Soon, my flight was announced and within minutes, the small aircraft thundered into the clear blue skies and the first leg of my journey back to Nigeria had begun in earnest.

I must confess that I hate long flights. The feeling of confinement, watching the time as minutes slowly go by always get me disconcerted. To pass time therefore, I had brought along my lap top with me, equipped it to play the DVD -"The Last King of Scotland". I had other interesting DVDs to watch but the problem was that the battery in my lap top had a mere 2-hour life. But when I visited Delta website, before embarking on the journey, I had read that one could purchase a form of adaptor, through Delta Airlines. The adaptor would continually charge the battery in my lap top, making it easy for one to use the computer throughout the flight. The cost of the adaptor was about $125. I was ready to pay for it just to keep busy with my lap top during the flight. I had packed a total of three movies, hoping that watching three interesting movies would knock off about 5 hours from my flight time. I would then use the remaining 5 hours to read, do some drawings and writing as well. I had a plan, I thought and was bubbling with the exuberance of someone who had it all figured out.

My flight from Harrisburg to Atlanta was smooth. Soon we were back in the air, this time headed to Lagos. When we originally boarded the jumbo jet that was to take us to Lagos, there was an announcement to the effect that the flight was a full one. I therefore took up my window position in the three seat row and waited for the other two passengers to show up. Of course I was hoping for passengers that did not have strikingly annoying habits. I once sat next to a man that snored all the way from the USA to Nigeria. I had to endure the sound for so many hours, periodically nudging him to break the sound coming from him. In this case, I was hoping that none of that would happen. Then a lady came along; she looked young but dressed very shabbily. She had layers of uncoordinated clothing dangling from every part of her body. I am not a fashion guru by any standards but I have always felt that for someone traveling 6000 miles in an aircraft where one is supposed to sit in very close proximity with people you have never met, a little decency was in order. She sat on that row but on the aisle side. Then I waited and waited for the person in the middle row to show up. Not too long, the attendant announced that the aircraft door was about to be closed for departure. I was pleasantly bewildered! They had announced that the aircraft was full and now there was no one in the middle seat of my row and they were about to close the door and depart?. Then I undid my seat belt, stood up and gently surveyed the cabin. A few more rows had some empty seats. I was convinced that the flight was not really a full one as previously announced. It did not take long before the aircraft slowly lifted its nose in search of the African skies. Eager to purchase the so-called adaptor and start watching "The Last King of Scotland", which is a movie about Idi Amin and his tyrannical reign, I longed for the aircraft to ascend to cruising altitude so that the attendants would come calling to dispense duty-free items.

Meanwhile, I picked up a duty-free magazine tucked into a pouch in front of me and began to peruse it for any items I may like. Sure enough, I came across the so-called adapter and was assured that it was exactly what I wanted. When it was time, I called over a flight attendant and asked to purchase one of the adapters. She looked bewildered after I explained what I wanted. "Can you show it to me in the duty free magazine?" she requested. I obliged. She still had a startled look on her face; it was as though she had never seen or heard of it before. Then she beckoned on another attendant and showed the picture to her. That one looked surprised for a while but then straightened up and said, "Oh, we do not have it in stock". I was again disappointed. "You advertised this on your website and duty-free magazine and you do not have it?" I said rhetorically. The lady was about to leave when I added sarcastically, "this is just the beginning of a ten and half hour journey and you are already running out of items you advertised?" Although this seems like a minor issue but remembering the disappointment I already had with my baggage, I began to wonder how serious Delta Airline was taking the Atlanta-Lagos flight. Most airlines would do whatever it took to keep their customers and here was Delta doing all it could to chase one away. It just did not make sense to me. I chose not to complain but swallowed my disappointment and took on plan B. I was going to watch the in flight movies.

I opened the monitor in front of me and pushed several buttons before coming across a movie selection menu. I followed all instructions and then came to the portion where you pay. In line with the instruction on the screen, I pushed my call button and after a while, one of the flight attendants came. I told her that I needed to pay for the movie I had selected and handed her my five dollars. She swiped a card and said I was ready to watch the movie and left. The movie started alright but the screen froze in less than two minutes. Well, I waited patiently hoping that it would return to normalcy but the minutes kept going by and nothing happened, it was still frozen. Without hesitation, I pushed my call button again. The same Lady that I gave five dollars came back. "What is it again?" she said trying to be funny. "This thing is frozen", I said. "Okay, I will go and reset it", she said and quickly left again. Not too long after she left, the monitor blanked out for a while and then a stream of letters and numbers started scrolling across, it was apparently rebooting. At the end of it, the original screen from which I had selected the movie came up again. I was happy so I made the same selection and hit enter. It went through the motions and then asked for the mode of payment and I entered cash, the same routine I went through before. Then it requested, again, that I call an attendant. At this time I was frustrated! Calling on the same attendant that was already feeling disturbed by me was not exactly something I was delighted to do but I already gave her money so I had no choice. Moreover, none of the anomalies was the result of anything I had done. "Ping pong", I pushed the button again.

None of the flight attendants responded for what seemed like eternity but I was patient, after all it was a ten hour flight. Finally, I looked up and saw the same flight attendant on the far corner, she had seen the call button light above me and, I may be wrong, but I felt like she was trying to sneak past me before I beckoned on her. She motioned that she was coming and I could see the frustration that had built up. She briskly walked over to my seat. "Now what?" she said. "The computer screen requested that I call you again but I thought I had paid you and did not need to go through the same payment motion again", I said, sounding serious. She did not say a word and simply swiped a card she had around her neck through a slit below the monitor. She did not even wait for the movie to come on but dashed off. Well, the movie came on but again, just a few minutes later, it froze. I had had it! I pushed the button three times in a row. Again, that very flight attendant appeared, took a look at the screen and as soon as she saw that it was frozen again, she did not even allow me to say a word and just took out the money that I had earlier given to her and handed it back to me. "There is nothing more I can do", she said as she made to leave. "Can I use the monitor in the middle since no one is sitting there?" I asked helplessly. "Its up to you", she muttered as she walked away. "Some customer service for an airline that I decided to patronize and help succeed", I muttered under my breadth. At this time, I stood up briefly and cast a sweeping glance. I noticed that there were a few other monitors that seemed to have error messages also. Some seemed like they were still rebooting. It was later that I found out that I was not the only one having problems with my monitor. Now what do I do to keep myself busy, I wondered. If I turned on my laptop that early, the battery life would soon be gone and when boredom really set in, I would have nothing to fall back to. I closed my eyes and promptly dozed off albeit briefly.

Stay tuned for Part 2 Next Week