In this review I will tell you about a short flight in the Republic of South Africa.
I apologize in advance for the stinginess and haste of the style, and possibly tongue-tiedness, because I am writing the basis of the text for the review during another flight and there is still time before landing just a couple of something hours. I’ll polish it up grammatically later, as I have free time. But no matter how much I’m in a hurry, I still can’t do without a preface.
Preface
In many countries there are a couple of cities between which there are a lot of flights in a day, much longer than the next busiest couple. These are, for example, Jeddah and Riyadh, Moscow and St. Petersburg, Sydney and Melbourne, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. This also includes South African Cape Town and Johannesburg, the flight between which is the focus of this review. These cities are connected by about 50 flights a day from various airlines, including the national carrier South African, which operates one and a half hour long flights, sometimes on wide-body aircraft, in particular on the A-340. If I had known this nuance on the day of purchasing the ticket, I would certainly have purchased a flight on the A-340, even sacrificing a possible inconvenient departure/arrival time.
But the ticket was purchased simply based on the not-too-late evening flight and the arrival in Joburg I was in Tambo, and not in Lanseria.
FlySafair airline, low-cost airline, Boeing 737, flight FA-217, departure at 18.30. I’ve already written a story about FlySafair on this resource, so I won’t be able to glean anything fundamentally new about this carrier from this review, but the emphasis will be on other details, in particular, I’ll try to talk in detail about the starting point of the route, Cape Town International Airport.
What is the departure point
To preface the report, a little about Cape Town itself. If anyone is still in doubt about whether to visit it or not, stop thinking and weighing the pros and cons, and definitely go. "Mysogorsk" is definitely worth a visit. I don’t know anyone who has visited this city - everyone was delighted, no one was disappointed. Renting a car is a must. Firstly, this is a matter of personal safety, and secondly, without it it is impossible to embrace the immensity there. Cape Town is a very beautiful and unusual city. And the suburbs too. And if it weren’t for the criminal component, I would say that this is an ideal place to live: excellent climate, infrastructure, picture. Prices for everything, however, also do not lag behind and are much higher than in Johannesburg, but you have to pay for the pleasure of living in such a place. The only fly in the ointment is periodic power outages (but this is not a local problem, but a problem throughout South Africa).
Downtown or, more simply, the city center. It seems like a beautiful boulevard, where it’s probably nice to stroll, sit on a bench in the shade of palm trees and crack some sunflower seeds, but notice how few pedestrians there are. Why? Yes, because the place is restless. You can easily get robbed here without blinking an eye:
Camps Bay. Although there are plenty of shady types here, this is not their territory, so you don’t have to worry about security here. An area to relax, stroll casually, watch the ocean or relax in numerous outdoor cafes:
The most trump, popular and safe place in Cape Town is, of course, the Victoria and Alfred waterfront. From here you have amazing views of Table Mountain. But here’s the problem - during the entire stay I was never able to see her full profile - every day the sky was mostly clear, with a small amount of clouds, but which, as luck would have it, were always spinning over the mountain plateau, partially hiding her presentability:
And of course, visiting Cape Town and not visiting the Cape of Good Hope is unforgivable. Oh, how your soul sings inside when you stand on the very edge of a majestic rock, arms outstretched towards the air currents that seem to be rushing from all sides, and you feel like a part of her majesty nature. And looking beyond the horizon you realize that further away there is only the land (or ice) of Antarctica:
Alas, I don’t live in these beautiful places, but I was there only for a few days.
]It's time to go back.
The road to the airport
The international airport is located quite far from the center of gravity of the city's business and tourist life. You can only get there by personal car, rental car or taxi. There is probably public transport, but I haven’t seen anything like this within the airport.
At the beginning of the path:
The path passes by a brutal-looking power plant:
And closer to the airport - past what is the main negative nuance of the city - the townships. God forbid you end up there... While I was in Cape Town, a tourist from the UK and his family mistakenly ended up in the townships. For the family (wife and child), thank God, there were no consequences, but the head of the family was killed. Local media even wrote about it. They killed him just like that. Because he ended up in a foreign area.
This is what the highway looks like that goes to the airport along the townships:
And along the highway they:
But let’s not talk about sad things, because the airport is already close:
Here it appears behind the viaduct:
I look at the sign where you need to complete your car rental:
Completion of your car rental takes place in the underground level, from which has an underground passage directly to the terminal. Thus, it is not possible to photograph the facade and generally the exterior of the terminal building.
True, you can leave the terminal, but you won't be able to go far:
There is no road directly to the terminal. Taxis or personal cars (as well as rental cars) drive into a nearby huge multi-level parking lot, from where passengers walk to the terminal. This is the first time I’ve seen this, and I think it’s convenient. I was able to find the place where I took a photo of the space in front of the terminal facade:
But here is a more telling photo that shows that in front of the facade of the airport building there is only a pedestrian area (I took this photo when I arrived in Cape Town) :
Cape Town International Airport
It was as if I entered not a terminal, but some kind of shopping center: right behind the entrance is a large escalator to the upper level:
I go up the escalator; if it were not for the sign on the left, then it would look exactly like a shopping center:
At this level, the registration area:
I approach the FlySafair check-in counters:
I asked for a seat by the window. They gave me a very good option - 3F:
After check-in, before boarding, I decided to take a walk around the perimeter of the airport. On the level above there is a continuous balcony, surrounding the terminal with the letter “p”:
Along the perimeter at this level there are cafes, shops, and installations. It seems that the tiles on the wall are rusty or dirty from age, but this is not the case - it’s just a fashionable idea. Airport logo:
Ignored the opportunity to try a KFC burger:
The children's playroom called Jimmy Jungles was locked and even surrounded with a chain - apparently not very popular:
Next to Jimmy Jungles they installed a clumsy model of an airport:
From this level there was also access to windows overlooking the airfield. Despite the fact that the passage to the windows was through a cafe, curiosity won and I went up to look at the aircraft parking lot. Without turning my head, two sides caught my eye: the standing British Ayrways and the moving RwandAir:
I looked to the right - there were several FlySafair Boeings parked at the jet bridges and.. wait a minute.. Whose keel is sticking out from there? familiar livery? I can’t believe my eyes: Belavia! Where is the national Belarusian carrier in Cape Town from? Moreover, in the person of Embraer, on which you cannot fly far. Maybe someone ordered a charter to African countries? But a more logical explanation seemed to be that the Belarusians sold their planes here or to an airline in another African country and they had not yet been repainted:
I had only just managed to take pictures when they told me to do something I ordered it in a cafe, otherwise, go out! Yes, for God's sake, on your way out. I’ve already taken a photo around, there’s nothing else to do here.
View of the check-in area from the other side:
From the departure board you can understand that for the second city of South Africa the geography of destinations is quite impressive:
In addition to many African cities, Cape Town is connected by direct flights to some European cities, three US cities, and South America (Sao Paulo). Emirates and Qatar fly daily, with the former operating two flights per day. Although, with such a vast geography of international destinations, there are not a single flight abroad at night, as the board informed.
I go down to the lower level and go to security control:
After passing security, a long corridor leading to the gates:
The corridor leads to an area occupied by cafes and shops:
My gate A8, heading towards it:
I come out to a long corridor, along which there are shops on one side and windows with access to the airfield on the other:
I found a comfortable chair with a back oriented towards the window and with a connector for charging a phone :
I settled down with great comfort, almost drowning in the chair, but alas, as is usually the case, the charger did not work. I had to look for an outlet in another place.
I found other chairs, possibly made back in the 19th century, on some old wooden scaffolds with the same ancient stumps-stands for stretching out legs and cleaning shoes. This entire exhibition was clearly not installed for the purpose of relaxing passengers, but rather for the purposes of a museum or exhibition. But nowhere were there signs saying “no boarding” or anything like that. Opposite this entire ancient structure and parallel to it, ordinary, crude-looking seats, covered with leatherette, were placed, exactly like somewhere in the corridors of a district clinic. But for some reason it was impossible to sit on these seats, since their general wretchedness was added to by a piece of paper crudely pasted on old dirty tape, clumsily broadcasting that one should not sit on these benches:
In general this was not a place where you could comfortably wait for your flight while charging your phone. I changed the location and while I was looking for a place to charge my phone, I took a few pictures of the boards on the airfield at the moments when something was flying in or out:
Having found a place, I killed the remaining time by charging the phone. The time for landing came, I stood in the back. The queue looks unusual for Africa, almost entirely consisting of whites:
I'm boarding:
On board, flight
I'm coming on board. In the photo below, the flight attendant with her hair in a bun had a Slavic appearance. I even thought that she was Russian, but it was Bianca - her badge spoke about it:
Outside the board I saw through the window an old lady passenger who had already taken her place in the first row and, exactly like our old ladies sitting on a bench at the entrances, watching everyone entering both through the porthole and in person:
Inside the cabin was already bustling with passengers - someone was pushing hand luggage onto the luggage rack, creating a hitch in the movement of passengers through the cabin, some got up from their seats, allowing those who had a seat in the middle or near the window to get through, and others simply started digging around in the wrong place and at the wrong time:
But I didn't have to wait long. Since I had the third seat on the right, I simply counted the third row and sat by the window:
Through the porthole window the tails of two Boeing 777s were visible: Emirates and British:
Rated legroom: ok:
Safety instructions are pasted into the back of the seat in front:
In the pocket there is a menu and a bag for an emergency:
The chair itself is ergonomic, thin, but simple: neither a monitor nor at least a USB socket:
The plane gradually filled with passengers. And again I noticed that 90 percent are white, which is unusual for Africa. Sometimes on flights across Africa from or to Nairobi I would find myself among literally two or four white people. But here it felt like it was a flight somewhere in America or Europe. At some point a guy came up and said that I sat in his place. I was ready to argue, but he turned out to be right: it turns out that I sat on the row marked with the number 4, since on the right side the numbering began with the number 2. Because where the first row of seats should be, a toilet was installed. But on the left there was one more row, and there 1 row was designated as it should - with the number 1. The photo below shows how it all works:
But it was better for me, on my The rightful place for the porthole was directly opposite the chair. I moved, and now it seemed that I was sitting in the second row:
Through the window, the engine and wing moved even further from the field of view:
It became get dark. We were still standing when a South African A-320 wedged between us and the British:
The landing ended, the plane headed to the starting point. We turn to the beginning of the runway for takeoff:
Took off over the townships towards the ocean:
Over False Bay -bey began to turn to the left. While the plane was making a turn, my window was looking into space and nothing was visible. Those who sat on the left were luckier - they could partially view Cape Town and Table Mountain. Turning around, from my side the resort town of Strand became visible, sandwiched between the Hottentots Holland mountains and the ocean:
Since I was flying with a low-cost airline, meals were paid. But the menu is inexpensive:
Few people bought anything to eat. If they took anything, it was mainly to wash it down with a can of chips and soda. However, I had something more substantial with me, bought in a Cape Town store especially for the flight: a sandwich with cheese and ham:
By the way, I brought water with me on the plane, it was at security - the check was either not noticed or ignored (the volume was 0.5 l). I ate it carefully; if any crumbs fell, they did so on the plastic wrap laid out on the table. Those who crunched on chips did not particularly bother about the crumbs, which during the eating process formed abundantly and fell either on the table or on their trousers, from where they were safely swept away by hand or shaken off onto the floor. After finishing my big sandwich and drinking water, I didn’t want to leave the boat like a pig, leaving garbage behind. I needed somewhere to put the crumpled bag of crumbs and an empty plastic bottle, so I headed to the toilet.
The toilet, as mentioned above, was just a stone’s throw away. It was clean, everything necessary for hygiene was available:
The interior of the plane, including the toilet, seemed quite worn out, battered by life. Probably, the plane on which I was flying is already more than a dozen years old.
An hour into the flight passed and the crew announced their descent. We landed over the suburbs of Johannesburg. And again I was unlucky - the view of the city itself was from the other side of the plane, but I got the outskirts:
We sat down. We taxi past standing Americans (Delta), South Africans, Ethiopians:
We stopped at the jet bridge:
After the flight
I get out of the plane to the platform bus. It's so cold in Johannesburg!:
They took us to the terminals by bus. I go into the domestic arrivals terminal:
I didn’t have any luggage with me:
I go out to the arrival hall:
The arrival hall is empty, I don’t linger here, as I’ve already called the person who will meet me at the appointed place at the exit:
I go out into the street, where the person who meets me is about to pick me up:
]
This concludes the review. Johannesburg Tambo Airport is covered sparingly by me, but a more detailed description of it is in my other reviews, which are devoted to departures from Tambo (one to Rwanda, the other to the UAE), where all the details are laid out on the shelves. Once again, I apologize for the quick style, I promise to improve for the next review, which is just around the corner.
Thank you everyone for reading and see you on new directions!
Vote for review:
