Monday 27 January 2014

Flight of Fancy

Since I found out they were running internal scheduled flights in Sri Lanka, especially the seaplanes, I wanted to fly. Of course, there is the novelty of flying, but if you have ever driven any distance in Sri Lanka you will know it is not always pleasant, so getting somewhere quickly is very appealing.

This year I dug my heels in and said we had to fly somewhere….anywhere, preferably on a seaplane.

The company providing that service is Cinnamon Air. We looked up all the options and were really shocked at the costs - with the cheapest flight being over $170 (USD) for a one way flight (you can tell when they’re aiming to screw target tourists when the rates are in dollars).



Plan B

The Sir Lankan Air Force run a scheduled flight service under the name HeliTours. Alas, no sea planes, but they do provide scheduled flights to various parts of the island, at a very reasonable cost – this looked good to us.

This would be a new experience, and not just for us. None of our friends or relatives had used this service, so we entered into this with more than a little trepidation.

One area of the island I had never been to was the north east coast. When we lived in Sri Lanka the war was still in full swing and that part of the island was definitely off limits so this seemed like the ideal opportunity to go (although it was actually off-season so the sea would not be great though the hotel was cheap!)

We would be flying to Trincomalee.



Booking

The destination, times and cost looked great. One thing that made us a little nervous was that this was all being run by the Sri Lankan Air Force. Not that they could not fly us there safely, but we were worried about the process of booking on-line and getting the tickets being easy.

We went through the booking process only being confused slightly when entering the passenger details (not very clear). So far so good. Then came the payment. We were thrown out to an external payment service which happily accepted and approved our payment. Great, we thought, as the page informed us that it was sending us back to the HeliTours site and not to go Back or Refresh. We waited. We waited some more. We waited a bit longer.

Something had gone wrong. It was 7pm on Friday evening; things were not looking good.

It seems every company in Sri Lanka now has a “Hot Line” and HeliTours was no exception. We phoned the hot line and got hold of a chap who informed us he needed to get back to the office and for us call again in 30 minutes. Strange, but ok.

In the meantime I phoned the credit card company (on their 0800 number using Skype – internet telephony is great) to check whether the transaction had gone through – it had, Rs 9300. They gave me the authorisation code as a reference.

Back on the hotline and the conversation (getting disconnected every 30 seconds) basically went that they needed to trace the transaction with the bank and that they could not do this until Monday morning. We should call them Monday morning and they would e-mail the ticket if everything checked out. They did however reserve us two seats on the plane anyway until Monday.

We were a little worried, egged on by people telling us that there is no way HeliTours would sort this out over the phone and that we would need to fight our way down to their offices in the centre of Colombo, not a nice prospect, but to our relief and surprise when we phoned first thing Monday morning we were greeted with the news that everything was fine and that they had e-mailed the ticket moments earlier.

Easy, the ticket was in my inbox, what were we worrying about?



The Airport

The flights leave from what we know as Ratmalana Airport but what seems now to be called Colombo Airport judging by the name board at the entrance. As long as we remember this has been a military airbase but it seems this was the original international airport for Colombo (a fact imparted to us by the driver as he was driving us there).

The flight was at 07:30 and the check-in time was 06:00 so we set off from the apartment at around 05:30 pretty confident that the journey through the usually busy Galle road would be quiet at that time of day.

After the expected uneventful drive we arrived at the airport.

With memories of this being a military airbase and stories we had been told we were surprised at how easy the place was to get to, none of the security check points that we had expected.



Checking In

The driver dropped us off well before our 6am check-in time.

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We had to wait for about 10 minutes and then finally went through security which involved our bags and ourselves being scanned and then a pat-down by a security person – all polite and efficient (I've had worse treatment – not mentioning any large western continents).

Then came the weigh in. Our hold luggage was weighed and labelled as normal. Then came the request for not only the hand luggage to go on the scales, but for us to get on the scales too! These weights were noted very carefully on the passenger manifest, and carefully ignored by both of us!

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Finally we get presented with the boarding passes.

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Boarding

We would be flying in a Xian MA60, one of several it seems bought by the air force specifically for the commercial flights.

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There were a couple more of these planes waiting, along with a helicopter that unfortunately services one of the other routes – a helicopter ride would have been cool.

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Taking Off

We took our seats and looked out of the window. My thoughts went to the initial fear of ceiling fans wobbling off. I'm pretty sure they would have checked to make sure the propeller was attached securely.

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We were impressed by the fit out of the plane. There was plenty of leg room; it all looked very nice.

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We were a little worried though that that the Exit arrows on the floor were pointing to the cockpit, unless one assumes that the cockpit is considered to be an emergency exit?



The Flight

The doors closed and the engines started, the propellers turning faster and faster. It was all very exciting.

We started to climb over Colombo and we were able to see various landmarks in and around Colombo. Very quickly we left the city behind and started moving over the country side.

We levelled off and the cabin crew jumped into action….

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…dishing out a small box of goodies which consisted of biscuits, nuts, a cereal bar and a carton of juice.

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Landing

The flight was short, a mere 45 minutes, and soon we were descending through the clouds over thick jungle with an occasional clearing. China Bay Airport is one of those scary airports where you fly in over water not seeing the runway until you hit the ground. It all adds to the excitement though.

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On a serious note, the weather had been pretty bad around that area the time we were travelling so we were lucky that the flight was so smooth and that the the flight was not cancelled.

The plane hit the runway and continued on the ground at speed for some time before slowing down and gently easing round what seemed to be someone’s garden before finally parking up right in front of the airport building. This really was a small airport.

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Walking Away

The plane at a standstill the doors open and the announcement that we had landed at China Bay Airport blasts through the plane followed by the order that if you are heading for Jaffna you should remain seated.

We stood up and made our way off the plane…

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…and headed towards the small building which seemed to be the China Bay Airport terminal, where we assumed we would be reunited with our baggage. The exit was around the side the building, we didn't need to go inside, we just followed everyone else.

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Standing in front of the building, the baggage had not appeared straight away and in a panic I wondered if perhaps they just dumped it in front of the plane to be collected, so I walked back towards the plane in time to see all the luggage being pulled on a hand cart, from the plane, and round the opposite side of the building. I calmly walked back to see the cart with our luggage on it appearing in front of the building.

Collecting the bag we did our best impression of confused tourists, and the driver of the taxi we had pre-booked came up to us – “Mr David”? I nodded and we boarded the van with comfy seats, very cool air-conditioning and a furry dashboard, then headed off into Trincomalee to do some sightseeing.


Epilogue

Talking to people we were most effusive about our flying experience mentioning how efficient and smart the service was.

This was marred only slightly by being told that the Xian MA60, to quote wikipedia:

“…has not been type certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration. No other Western Government has issued it with a safety certificate.”

But as the saying goes:

Any landing that you can walk away from is a good one!