Taking Lufthansa for a ride I have always been of the conviction that LUFTHANSA should permanently UPGRADE its ‘frequent-flyer’ W.S. to FIRST CLASS. No be so! I even tried to talk a German-Nigerian lady working in LH headquarters in Frankfurt to arrange this once and for all with her bosses, but to no avail. Most probably because the ‘man’ is no drug-pusher or 419 con-man…
Some time in the late eighties we manage to meet deep inside the Frankfurt airport security area, after I talked my way into it with the head of airport police. Wole, just in from God-knows-where and supposed to be on his way to Lagos, tells me that for the next leg of his journey he doesn’t even have a seat ‘in thrombosis class’, i.e. the far too cramped economy class:
”Wetin you fit do for me?“
”Oga, I go try-o!“
And I ask him to please hand me his usual wad of tickets of all classes. I leaf through the two dozen tickets chose the cheapest one saying Frankfurt-Lagos, walk up to the lady at the ticket counter in the Senator Lounge and start begging for ‘your V.I.P. pasenger’.
The lady regrets: “Sorry, but we don’t have even a single free seat in ECONOMY, and we are also totally over-booked!”
“But sorry, Madame, there really is NO need to put the man in wooden class. May be you will find him a seat a bit closer to the pilot...”
“What kind of a V.I.P. is he again?”
I explain slowly and then the lady – with a big smile – answers: “Oh, yes, way up front we DO have a free seat for your friend.“ She hands me a boarding card for FIRST and wishes me “a pleasant flight.“ Thanks! I hand Wole the boarding card, keep the envelope as a souvenir (facsimile???). Wole looks at it, laughs loud, and stores all the other – expensive – tickets in his trolley: “Gerd, from now on you can
arrange ALL of my flights!”
I have had to many times since, with Wole sometimes falling asleep in his hotel room while I am on the phone with Lufthansa, Air France, KLM or what have you, but I must admit that I have NOT always been so successful. But the story has nevertheless been told over and over again over some glasses of good Italian Red or a spicy Grappa. |
