Diverted To The Azores On Cabo Verde Airlines! (Part 2)
The Flight At A Glance:
| Aircraft: | Boeing 757-200 |
| Origin: | Washington Dulles International Airport |
| Destination: | Sal Amilcal Cabral International Airport |
| Flight Time: | 3h 30 & 6h 40m |
| Date: | January 3, 2020 |
| Class of Service: | Economy Class |
| Airline: | Cabo Verde Airlines |
| Flight Rating | 46/100 |
| Flight Number: | VR693 |
| Seat Number: | 17A |
| Time of Actual Departure: | 1:40 PM |
| Time of Actual Arrival: | 8:20 PM |
| Departure Terminal: | N/A |
| Aircraft Tail Number: | D4-CCG |
I reviewed my first flight on Cabo Verde Airlines from Washington to Sal a while back, which is attached here. In that installment, I talked about what Cabo Verde Airlines is, why I am reviewing them, and gave a more in-depth review about the cabin, seats, etc, so if you haven’t read my first review, I would recommend that you start with that. In this review, I’ll be talking about my very…interesting experience coming back from Cabo Verde (which, by the way, was a fantastic experience; I only wish that I could have seen more islands!). Without giving too much away (although the title gave away the culminating event of the many mishaps/annoyances), I’ll just get into the review, starting off with a rant about how much I hate lines.
Part 1: Lines, With A Little Bit Of Colonial Strife
We (my parents and I) got to the airport at about 7:00 AM for our flight to Washington which was scheduled for 9:00 AM. We would have arrived at the airport earlier, although I saw that the plane had never left Sal on-time before, via FlightRadar24, so we didn’t see much need in getting to the airport any earlier. Sal Airport itself is a mess. While the airport wasn’t not clean, it clearly was somewhat rundown and is way too small for what it is used for today, and doesn’t have much room for its terminal to grow; it needs a new terminal. For those who don’t know, there is only one terminal at Sal Airport. There is only one main check-in area at the terminal, which at the time, was being almost exclusively used for Cabo Verde Airlines.
Cabo Verde Airlines relies heavily on connecting traffic, so it operates in two departure banks out of Sal Airport: one in the morning with departing flights going to Europe and North America, and the other with flights departing for Africa and South America. Since all of Cabo Verde Airlines’ aircraft basically take up all of Sal Airport, other airlines such as Tui or TAP Portugal only utilize the airport at times when Cabo Verde Airlines isn’t operating flights, from about 10AM to 6PM or in the middle of the night.
Side note: something relating to this which I found interesting was that in Sal, over New Years’ Eve, fireworks had to be launched at either 11:30 PM or 12:30 AM, as TAP Portugal’s plane arrived in Sal at about exactly midnight (a TAP A320 probably isn’t the best way to spend New Year’s, even to an avgeek like me). As you can imagine, the locals weren’t very happy about that; you’ve gotta love the irony in that (for those who don’t know, Cabo Verde was a Portuguese colony).
Anyways, my main point in all of this is that our flight was departing in the main morning departures bank of Cabo Verde Airlines. Not only that, but our flight was also the absolute last flight to depart in Cabo Verde Airlines’ morning departures bank; almost all of their Europe flights departed from 7:40-8:30AM, while our flight was originally supposed to depart at 9:00 AM. That meant that while we arrived 2 hours early for our flight, which would normally be fine, everyone else on the earlier flights to Europe arrived an hour before us, which meant that the check-in line was extremely long, with 3-4 757s worth of people in front of us. While that might not in itself be very bad, there were only 3-4 agents for Cabo Verde Airlines economy and business class, none of whom actually worked for Cabo Verde Airlines. And thus, I entered…the line.
At that point, the flight had already been delayed until 11:00AM, which made sense, given that the plane only landed at the airport from Brazil at 7:30 AM. The line was, unfortunately, very slow moving, given that there were only a few agents working, and it took forever to actually check each customer in and to check their bags. I’m a pretty big hater of lines (isn’t everyone?), given that I’m a somewhat impatient person, which is why I also hate amusement parks, as I can’t get my mind around why anyone would want to spend 2 hours in a line, just for 2 minutes of ‘exhilarating’ nausea. While there was actually free WiFi at the airport, it didn’t function, given that there were probably a couple hundred people trying to access it at the same time, which was why I was very happy to discover that I actually hadn’t offloaded a seemingly ancient version of checkers from my phone, which is probably the only thing which it can do offline.
About 45 minutes into the line, we had only made it about halfway through it, which was starting to drive me crazy. At that point, I overheard a group of people who were in front of us talking to a friend of their’s, who (in addition to surviving the infamous line) apparently at that point was going to the ticket office to upgrade to business class for only 100EUR, which seemed like a pretty good deal to me and only made me even more frustrated at the line, since business class would probably be sold out when we got to the front of it. Finally, at 8:30 AM, 1.5 hours after we entered and 30 minutes before the flight was originally supposed to depart, the line, we finally were called to a check-in desk. At that point, the line was nearly empty, as our flight was the last to depart.
We then at last were able to check-in, which involved much ease, and then were able to upgrade to business class and go home in peace having our pre-paid seats being taken away and being put in two middle and one aisle seat at the very back of the plane. Unfortunately, since we were relatively late at check-in, our seats which we had paid $15 for had been re-assigned (which really shouldn’t happen, but who knows what goes on in Cabo Verde Airlines’ booking systems). Also, while the seat map which the check-in agent had did show plenty of available seats in business class, she didn’t work for Cabo Verde Airlines (everyone at check-in worked for CV Handling), so she didn’t have the ability to upgrade us, so she recommended that we ask at the gate.
After checking in, it was 8:53, and the check-in hall was completely empty. Fortunately, the security line wasn’t too long (it only took about 10 minutes) and immigration also only took about 10 minutes, and at that point, we were in the main departures hall. Sal Airport is pretty small and therefore only has a couple shops and cafes which both had extraordinarily long lines (no, thank you…). In preparation for a 7.5 hour flight (so I thought at the time) with potentially definitely no good food onboard, we stocked up on snacks and waters at a convenience store there. The one nice thing about Sal Airport is that there are were couple of outdoor patios airside, which is really something I wish more airports in other warmer non-rainy areas would have (which I guess excludes most places).
Sal Airport has only six gates, all of which are remote, two of which, 5 and 6, are in a separate area which has the ability to be closed off for extra screening. Of course, our flight was departing from Gate 5, and there was extra screening for our flight, since the US requires extra security at most international airports. That meant standing in yet another line (I know, I’ve probably been complaining about long lines way too much #firstworldproblems), which took another good 45 minutes. The extra security check then took an extra 10 minutes, and we finally got through to the gate area at 10:30AM, a good 3.5 hours after we got to the airport, which is simply unacceptable, even for an airport in the developing world.
Part 2: Free Seating & A Not-Even-20-Second Bus Ride
After we finally got into the extra security area, we made our way over to the gate, where we hoped we could get upgraded or at the very least get better seats. The area where US flights depart from contained two gates (again, all remote) right next to each other and a pretty small waiting room, with the only amenities being a bathroom and vending machine. Unfortunately, no one from the airline was actually there; the only person at the desk was another person from CV Handling! We asked the person there if she could potentially help us upgrade or select better seats, but she said that we would need to wait until a person from the airline came. So we kept waiting by the side of the line for an agent from the airline to come for about 30 minutes, while people slowly trickled through extra security. At this point, a couple of other people were also trying to wheel and feel themselves into an upgrade, but the gate agent from CV Handling also wasn’t able to upgrade them.
Eventually, someone from the airline actually did arrive and had seemingly come from our airplane. At this point, it was about 11:00 AM and all of the other Cabo Verde Airlines aircraft had left, as we were the last plane to leave. The airline agent and the gate agent started to talk (in Creole) rather passionately about something, presumably about our aircraft. We were still at the front of the line and inquired about when we would board, and then the airline agent said that boarding would begin soon, and that the delay was in part because of an aircraft swap (as the plane we were originally scheduled on had somehow gone to Lisbon instead–clearly they don’t have a very good IT department) and that everybody’s seats changed because of that.
So the rational conclusion of them to make was…free seating for all! The decision actually kind of made sense, as everything at this point was so messed up that it would have been impossible to re-assign everybody new seats and get boarding passes out to everybody. That was actually good from our perspective, as it meant that we wouldn’t be stuck in row 33 or something…
At 11:20, the airline agent gestured towards us that boarding would begin (there was no separate business class line as they weren’t ultimately able to upgrade anybody), and the airline agent told everybody when walking down towards the ramp individually that it would be free seating onboard. We headed down on the tarmac and entered a bus… despite the fact that our aircraft (which I was now 100% sure was our aircraft, unless we were to take a Tui 737 or a Binter CRJ back to DC) was only a couple hundred feet away (gotta love the logic in that)! Soon, the bus became full, then two full buses were loaded, when our bus driver abruptly left and headed towards a Tui plane and started helping unload its bags! Mind you the bus was at this point packed and there was no AC on, so everyone started to get somewhat rowdy (and the people became even more frustrated when they realized that the only Cabo Verde Airlines plane on the island was the one sitting 200 feet away from us, so multiple people jokingly offered to drive the bus there).
After waiting on the bus for a good 20 minutes, we were asked to offload by the same Cabo Verde Airlines lady and were also asked to come back into the terminal. Great. After an awful experience at the airport and zero communication from anyone at the airline, we now were asked to backtrack to being inside the terminal after we had already ‘boarded.’ Most of the people actually stayed on the bus at first as no one wanted to be stuck with the worst seats on the plane, as everyone feared that they would be sent to the back of the line if they re-entered the terminal.
We went back onto the ramp which takes you down to the tarmac from the terminal, so we would be in a prime position either way. It turns out that in the meantime, they had made an announcement for the people who had not ‘boarded’ where they said that the captain wasn’t on the plane. Fantastic. So now the first step to getting back to Washington was playing hide and seek with the captain? My first thought was maybe that the crew had timed out, although that wouldn’t really make much sense, so we were left to speculate as to the whereabouts of our captain for a good fifteen minutes.
Part 3: A Diversion & No Free Seating
Eventually, the uninformed policy of sending everyone back inside became a forced policy, as the sole two people who were managing everyone and everything relating to our flight (the two ladies from the airline and CV Handling, whom I was at this point really starting to feel bad for) ushered everybody back inside, as they were going to make an announcement about our flight. Sure enough, after everybody was back inside, they made the announcement that our flight was cancelled flight was not cancelled, but that the there was extremely bad weather over the Atlantic, so the captain and the first officer had been trying to figure out the best route to fly to Dulles, and had determined that the only way to get everyone and their luggage to Washington was to fly via the Azores. She said that it would take 3 hours to get to Santa Maria in the Azores and then another 6 hours back to Dulles. As you can expect, there was much chaos as no one wanted to spend 11 hours on a plane, after all of this prior chaos.
At this point, the captain came onto the PA to explain his rationale. Apparently, there were a lot of storms over the Atlantic, meaning that the plane couldn’t fly on the most direct route, and that it would have to fly around the storm. While the plane itself could make that journey, since the flight was full, they would have to unload half of everybody’s luggage to complete the journey, which would have upset everybody even more. Mind you, the route was at the end of the 757’s range, which isn’t exactly a long-haul aircraft, so it was completely imaginable that a full 757 couldn’t make the journey with heavy headwinds and storms along the way. So they decided that the only way to get everybody and their luggage to Washington that same day was to fly via the Azores, which isn’t exactly the most direct routing, although if you look at a map, there is absolutely nothing between Cabo Verde and the US, so the Azores was as close as we could get. Fair enough, but most people were still frustrated, and a couple of people even tried to talk to the captain about why we had to divert or if there is any other way we could go, the answer being a complete no.
We then had to wait in the departures area for another good 20 minutes, until the announcement was finally made at 12:20 that we should head out to the buses again and that it would be still be free seating onboard. We headed out to the bus we had previously been on an hour ago, which then finally departed on the à-la-Frankfurt 20 second bus ride towards our 757 (which also happened to be the same one we flew to Cabo Verde on a week ago). We finally now were within the home-stretch of our entire ordeal, and everyone began slowly and politely letting each other by as everyone climbed the stairs towards the aircraft, because no one cares about getting the best seat when it’s open seating. Not!
Open seating works pretty well when boarding an aircraft off of a jetway, like Southwest does. However, when you have to take a bus to an airplane and the doors open at the same time, everyone, myself included, ran and shoved as everyone rushed towards the air stairs in hope of getting the best seat onboard the plane, whatever that may be. There also was some confusion of whether the business class seats were also up for grabs in this whole open seating ordeal, as I must have heard multiple people saying to each other “head for the large seats at the front of the plane, it is open seating after all!” Yeah, something was telling me that they wouldn’t just let anyone sit in business class for free…
As I entered the plane, I showed the flight attendants my boarding pass, and to my dismay, they seemed completely unaware that the flight would be open seating, and said that we had to go to our assigned seats. Unfortunately, as you may recall, we had paid for seats at booking, although we (my parents and I) were assigned seats separate from each other at the back of the plane! I did then go to my assigned seat at check-in, 33D or something, although I then told another flight attendant that we had paid for seats at booking, and that it was unfair that we were stuck with some of the worst seats on the plane and pulled up our booking confirmation which showed our original, reserved seats. I wasn’t expecting much and was kind of in a bad mood at this point, but to my joy, she said that we could choose any seats in economy class, to which we chose 17 A through C, which were probably the best seats in economy class, as they were in the exit row and could recline.
At that point, I was fearing that someone would angrily show up and say that we were sitting in their seats, although soon enough, the situation became so chaotic, that the flight attendants must have figured that it would be easiest to keep the doctrine of free seating, as pretty much everyone was confused at this point ant it was becoming more and more difficult to get everyone to stay in their ‘assigned’ seats. In case you were wondering, it seemed that some people were able to get their way into business class through negotiation, as it ended up being full; one person successfully was able to get upgraded into business class by claiming that he worked for Cabo Verde Airlines Marketing, which may or may not have been true. I was personally just happy to be in my seat and was actually quite satisfied that we were able to get the exit row, although I did feel kind of guilty about it too.
The whole process of boarding in its entirety was of course, very chaotic, especially towards the end. There ended up unfortunately being a lot of families split up, especially those who were on the last of three buses, as the flight was surprisingly, almost entirely full. I also felt extremely bad for everyone who had been up since midnight Cabo Verdean time as most of the people were transiting from Lagos or Dakar (although plenty also were tourists visiting Cabo Verde, like us, or were of Cabo Verdean descent), as the flights from Lagos and Dakar left as early as 4AM local time to make it to Sal in time for the connecting flight to Washington.
Part 4: Off To The Azores!
Soon enough, the captain came on the PA and profusely apologized for the many delays, while everyone seemed to be still in a very annoyed mood. He announced that the flight time would be about 3 hours to Santa Maria in the Azores and that it should still be a little over 6 hours to Washington from there, after a ‘very quick’ stop for fuel there. The captain really did seem apologetic and he clearly did the best job he could in getting everyone and their luggage to Washington the same day, and the decision he made was probably the one which had the least backlash, as I could only imagine what would have happened if they had left half of the people in Cabo Verde. The crew also seemed extremely apologetic, although many of them were also understandably not too thrilled to be going to the Azores (for an hour).
If you are wondering, this was the same aircraft I took from Washington to Sal nearly a week earlier and was an ex-Icelandair plane, so if you’re looking for details about the interior specifications of the aircraft, please see my former review. Again, there wasn’t any entertainment loaded onto the entertainment screens, although I had downloaded movies in preparation for the flight. We pushed back from our stand negative 4.5 hours early at 1:30 PM and then quickly taxied towards the runway, which we took off from at about 1:40 PM.
At this point, nearly everyone on the airplane was starving, including myself, as I (and probably everyone else) hadn’t had a real meal that day. Unfortunately, like the flight to Sal, they only served a sandwich and had a beverage service at the beginning of the flight, as they would only serve the full meal about halfway through the second flight, which didn’t make much sense. The sandwich was very bland and was pretty sad, as it was only a stale baguette with butter, which was hardly appetizing. Most people seemed to go to sleep almost immediately after the meal service, as everyone seemed completely and utterly exhausted after the ordeal that day. I personally watched a movie on my iPad, although I did hear over the course of the flight a few conversations asking why they would have screens installed but not activate them, much like on the inbound flight. The answer, of course, was that it was an ex-Icelandair plane, and that Cabo Verde Airlines just decided not to install any content, probably to save money.
The rest of the first flight was overall pretty smooth and uneventful. About 2h 40 minutes into the flight, the captain came onto the PA again and said that we would be landing in Santa Maria in about twenty minutes. I had actually never heard of Santa Maria in the Azores before, which only has inter-island flights along with a flight to Lisbon, as the main airport in the Azores is in Ponta Delgada. However, it seemed to be the most direct airport going to Washington and seems to be a fairly common diversion point.
We landed at Santa Maria Airport at about 4:45 PM local time. I’ve always wanted to go to the Azores, so I was actually kind of sad that we would be only staying there for an hour and would have to stay on the plane, but I can say that the island was stunning on approach. After we landed, we taxied to the tiny terminal (which doesn’t even have jet bridges), where the only other aircraft was a SATA Q400, which was headed to Ponta Delgada. Our aircraft soon began refueling, although the purser did come on the line saying that we couldn’t use electronic devices due to safety hazards while refueling and had to stay in our seats. Fair enough, but it was quite annoying that we couldn’t stretch our legs or use our phones to check the internet, as the aircraft did not have WiFi activated.
At 5:35 PM local time, about fifty minutes after we landed, the captain announced that the flight time would be approximately six hours and again profusely apologized for the multiple delays. We took off once again at 5:40 PM, and the sun soon set, on a flight which was originally supposed to be a day flight and get into Dulles shortly before 1 PM.
Part 5: A Quite Uneventful Rest Of Our Journey
The flight back from the Azores was, as mentioned in the title, quite uneventful. About two hours into the flight, the first real meal service of both flights was served, and consisted of a disgusting pasta dish. Fortunately, they did come around with that same comparatively amazing bread, which I mentioned in my first review, which was served warm, and seemed to make everyone’s, including myself’s day.
There’s really not much else to say about the flight. Almost everyone on the plane seemed pretty bored as there wasn’t any sort of in-flight entertainment. I also slept for about an hour after the meal service (which was an accomplishment, as I’m not usually able to sleep in economy class) and watched a couple more movies intermittently which I had downloaded before the flight.
We ended up landing at Washington Dulles Airport at 8:20 PM on Runway 19C; the flight ended up taking a bit longer than expected at a total flight time of 6h 40m. Overall, spending almost 11 hours on a full Boeing 757-200 in hard-as-a-rock economy class seats isn’t pleasant, and I certainly didn’t wish to spend any more time on that airplane. Side note: because of gate space, on most flights arriving into Dulles, Cabo Verde Airlines passengers deplane directly using the mobile lounges which usually only transport passengers between terminals and to the IAB at Dulles. However, because we arrived so late, we were able to get an actual gate in Terminal A, which, good as it may have been, meant that I wasn’t able to disembark a plane directly via one of Dulles’ mobile lounges, which my inner avgeek had been yearning to do for some time now. I know, this was probably the least of anybody’s problems of the day, but I still thought it was worth mentioning.
We disembarked the aircraft, with the flight attendants profusely apologizing for the delay again, and, as is the norm, saying they hope that we fly Cabo Verde Airlines again. What I can guarantee is that no one who went through this experience with Cabo Verde Airlines (myself included) would want to fly with them again.
Conclusion
Ultimately, when analyzing the experience I had on Cabo Verde Airlines, there are areas where I can fault them and there are areas I can’t. Sal Airport is (unfortunately) an unorganized mess, as it’s simply too small for the scale of operations which occur there now, which I can’t fault the airline for. However, what I can blame them for is for the unacceptable lack of quantity of check-in agents which were present and that their IT systems are evidently terrible. They also messed up in that their communication was simply abysmal, as it took hours for anyone to tell us why our flight was late, and there was also no organization in the whole process of telling people what was going on and getting everyone to board the aircraft. Of course, the weather wasn’t Cabo Verde Airlines’ fault, and the captain made what was undoubtably the best decision as to what to do.
The delay and diversion was, of course, very annoying, although in the grand scheme of things, everything could have ended up much worse. Overall, over my two experiences with Cabo Verde Airlines, I can without a doubt say that they are indeed a mess and that the Icelandic management hasn’t done a good job so far at turning Cabo Verde Airlines into the Icelandair of the south. However, it does seem that Cabo Verde Airlines has recently been much more on-time than they were in December, so perhaps some level of success is in reach for them.
