No shocker here: My flight is taking off 12 hours late. I got the bad news yesterday, shortly after purchasing several Kurdish rugs that would certainly make a trip across the Turkish border difficult.
I'll miss my connection back to the U.S., which ain't going to be fun to change. Kurdistan Airlines has promised to take care of me, and I will keep them to that. I still plan on being in California by Christmas, though that may take some work.
I'm not 100% certain that the problem is still with the Turkish government not allowing Kurdish planes to use its airspace. At this point, I don't really care. My flight was originally supposed to take off on Monday -- now it's Tuesday; the time for last week's flight to Frankfurt was bumped forward by about 14 hours, and still didn't take off on time; the week before, the flight was bumped forward by a day and still flew about 12 hours late.
Two weeks ago, the flight from Sulaimaniyah to Munich (on another airline) was cancelled. No one knows what's going on, and the local press isn't covering it because, well, Iraqis aren't exactly welcome in other parts of the world so they're not boarding planes. If they travel they're doing so overland -- to Jordan, Syria and Turkey. Kurds are actually fleeing to Turkey (not their favorite country, please see below) because their quality of life isn't exactly improving. (Freedom, sure, but little electricity, low-paying jobs, skyrocketing inflation, etc.)
As I indicated earlier, airlines in Iraq aren't exactly reliable. When my boyfriend traveled to Jordan last summer, the Iraqi Airways flight made a detour to another airport -- to pick up some Kurdish officials who were on their way to South America. The flight of course arrived several hours late in Amman.
At this point, the best I can hope for is to board a plane that will actually fly.
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2 comments:
Hi Tiare,
I cannot believe this is happening to you!! I flew out two weeks ago and had the same problem - why couldn`t they sort it out? It is true though that they are not allowed to fly over Turkey. When we eventually took of more than 16 hours late, we flew first towards Baghdad, then turned towards Syria and flew over Greece. I t took more than six hours. I keep my fingers crossed that you get back home in time.
Love,
Susanne
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