Delayed for 10 hours by a Broken Captains Chair

Now I assumed like most people would that safety is the number one priority for airlines followed by punctuality. I cannot agree more with those objectives as I like to arrive at my destination alive and walking rather than dead in a parts bag all burnt and crushed, but that airline objective can get out of hand. As I got on my plane in Costa Rica and sat there just waiting for my on time departure dreading the next 36 hours of travelling I have to do to get to my destination in the dark disease ridden country of Equatorial Guinea, I wasn’t expecting to hear from the Captain. Normal procedure is that he talks to us after take off and tells us how cold it is outside at 30,000 feet, like I care or something, or he tells us if we look out of the window on the left we can see some naked sunbathers in Mexico or some other drivel that he thinks can amuse while we are prisoners at his mercy. So this time when I hear the captain I know that something is wrong, he explains how important safety is and how great the engineers are and how dedicated they are at providing a timely service but the captains chair has broken and the motor has been removed and blah blah blah, so we were kept on the plane for two hours and with a 30 minute interval the captain would give us an update, so finally he said it was fixed and 30 minutes later he said it was screwed and then 10 minutes after that it was fixed by ingeniously using broken parts. Well I am no safety expert but a captains chair is no big deal and just because the vibrating foot massager was broken I don’t give a damn really. So he explained to us the method of repair and how he was going to request a flight slot and we would probably be flying within 1 more hour. Now it has gone 3 hours at this point and I am tired of flying already without leaving the ground and with my next connection lost in Atlanta I am pissed off. So the captain once more came on with a sad voice and told us now that the engineering manager in Atlanta had denied him take off as the seat wasn’t safe and that they would be flying in another seat from Atlanta and then the thing would have to be installed before we could fly and we would now have to disembark and wait for the seat to arrive, I couldn’t believe the fact that a captains chair had been the delaying point for my flight, a dodgy engine yes, bald tyres Ok, leaky landing gear, no problem but a goddam chair for the captain, completely unacceptable, this is safety gone mad. I arrived 10 hours late and had to wait 13 hours before I could change my tickets and leave for a hotel, it was the longest flight I had had for such a short stage. The hotel was free courtesy of Delta Airlines and some food vouchers also I gorged myself on Wendy’s burgers and Atlanta bakers cinnamon rolls with great vanilla coffee. That was something I liked doing and I dream of wendy’s burgers with chilli, since my days working in the USA. I Slept like a baby for 9 hours when I hit the queens size bed, no noise and breakfast was Ok but expensive for a hotel, it is the only way they make money our of Delta , ripping off the voucher users fro meals and drinks. I walked around the grounds for a couple of hours in the spring sunshine and took some fresh air and looked for any wildlife in the gardens, not much to see a few flitting birds I was unable to identify, I thought I saw a mocking bird, it was singing so beautifully that is what caught my attention. But other than that it must have been all shot out 150 years ago. My onward journey was quite uneventful and everything was OK until I arrived in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, I went to customs as usual and opened up my bags the thief who was posing as a customs official just picked up my brand new digital camera that was still in the box as I had bought it in Amsterdam and demanded the receipt, I never thought anything of it other than he was checking, he didn’t say much other than to write $50 in chalk on the table and say “give me”, I was shocked, I tried explaining as you would to a real customs official, “it is mine and I am not selling it”. It dawned on me that I was being robbed by a criminal in a uniform. I sought out my local contact who picks us up and waved him over and explained to him he was trying to steal my money he was waving his arms about and shouting at the guy but I was told to give him $20 and with that he gave back the camera and I was left feeling like a victim of robbery. This was my first face to face meeting with official corruption and it wasn’t a nice feeling. It is obvious that this country is heading the way of Nigeria where corruption and extortion is a normal everyday part of life. The regime here is so corrpt that everone else is poor and is deperate for money and if everyone up the chain of command is demanding a share of the spoils then the guy at the bottom will become more and more ruthless is his demands for money, thank god I am going to Brazil in 12 weeks time.