| After asking yet again, I was finally directed to the manager at the Air Algerie service counter and answered all the questions I shouldn't have been asked—Where are you going? Why did you miss your flight? He tried to assuage my concerns telling me not to worry, there is always a solution. I asked when the next flight was.
"Just a minute, I will check for you." How considerate. "Tuesday," came his reply. That was five days later.
"Then put us up in a hotel until you get us on another connection flight," I demanded.
"We can't do that. We can't let you out of the airport. You have no visa."
"No kidding, we have no visa, we didn't expect to stop in Algiers except for to get on another plane. We're not the ones to blame for missing our connection," I pointed out.
"Yes, yes, I know. But we've already checked with the police and by regulation, you can't leave the airport."
Silence.
"Well, what are you going to do with us?"
"You can wait in the waiting area," he said plainly.
"For FIVE days? You're joking. Your airline screwed up, so you need to put us up in a hotel or get us on another flight. Where is the next flight to?"
"There is one to Paris."
"And from there, when's the next flight to Cairo?" As he fumbled through pages of his flight schedule directory, I wondered who was the agent—him or me.
He finally looked up,"Everyday there is a flight to Cairo at 1:30pm."
I went back to Gregg, who had fallen asleep from lack of rest, and told him what I found out. We went back to the manager and asked to talk to the police. They led us down the corridor and a large man emerged from behind an office door. "What's the problem?" It seemed we needed to point out the obvious again: 1) we didn't have a visa because there was no need for us to get one (nevermind the fact that we probably couldn't if we tried, nor was Algeria ever top on our list of destinations...), and 2) Air Algerie was missed he connection so they were responsible for us. He responded the same way as the airline manager. There was nothing he could do; we could not leave the airport and he did not make up the rules. |
MALI
