BACKGROUND

Lubumbashi, is the second biggest city in DR Congo and it also hosts the second busiest International Airport after Kinshasa.
The place can be considered as rather isolated as there is no direct flight to Europe, Asia or the US.
Also it is a rare destination mainly used by business travellers and expats, as there is absolutely no tourism facilities, despite the huge potential of the country

Passengers planning to reach Europe from there have the choice between SA via JNB (not geographically efficient), KQ via NBO or ET via ADD

It is also technically possible to fly to Kinshasa (FIH) on a domestic route and then catch an AF or SN flight but, as there is no interline agreement, this would require you to collect your luggage at FIH and check in again on the International flight, which can be extremely painful for unexperienced travelers.

Now if your final destination is BRU, the best choice is definitely Ethiopian Airlines as they provide a quasi daily service from FBM to BRU.

This trip report will cover the FBM-ADD leg (via LLW) as well as the ADD-BRU leg (via CDG).

I will request your indulgence for the extremely bad quality of the pictures, especially those taken at FBM airport.
DR Congo has a strict no-picture policy at and around airports (and even in the country where people are usually reacting aggressively when they see you taking pictures, some heritage from the Mobutu era when taking pictures was forbidden, as Mobutu did not want pictures of the poverty to be shown abroad)

Also my apologizes for the lack of technical information about the flight and the aircraft. I’m still a “newbie” in the aviation world and I certainly don’t have your skills and experience in this domain.

However I think it’s the first time Lubumbashi airport is covered by a A.NET trip report so I hope you dear reader will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed reading your reports.

TO THE AIRPORT

Lubumbashi “Luano” airport is located at a mere 15km east from the city of Lubumbashi. It’s fairly accessible by car after a 20-minutes ride from downtoan.

The driver came to pick us up around 10.30 and we were soon en route to the airport.


On Avenue Tabora, with a Jacaranda tree blooming (violet flowers) on the left


Local restaurant on the way to the airport


Flame Tree (it’s the end of the rainy season where one can witness splash of such red trees everywhere in the city)


Bush nearby the airport

AT THE AIRPORT

We soon reach the airport perimeter where armed militaries checked our car sticker before allowing us to enter (the vehicles without that label must pay a 10$ tax to be allowed inside)


Telecommunication equipments belonging to the airport authorities (RVA) nearby the runway
You can see what seems to be an Antonov (?) in the background. It has been abandoned there for a while !

After some 500 meters, we entered the private parking of the “Malabar Lounge”.

In DR Congo, most of the passengers will hire the service of a “protocole”. It is a person in charge of executing all the administrative formalities (baggage check-in, passport control etc.) on your behalf. You just give him your documents and you seat back while he’s taking care of everything.
Some passengers who can’t afford those services can manage by themselves but it can be hazardous as corruption and bribery is widespread and it requires some specific skills (who to give, who not to give and how much to give ?).
We were lucky enough to have this taken in charge by my employer, so we just relaxed with a drink in the lounge while our luggage were tagged, our passports stamped by immigration and our boarding passes printed (mine was hand-written but I didn’t take care at this time).


The lounge has a nice view on the runway but I didn’t dare to take any picture as there were lots of “officials” hanging around.


Other view of the lounge with a big map of Austral Africa.


Homemade FIDS

Boarding was called on time (ET has a pretty good reputation in this field here) and, after collecting our documents from the Protocole, we immediatley left the lounge which was giving way directly to the tarmac.

On our way to the aircraft, I managed to sneak a few pictures


Passengers boarding KQ 73W to NBO


Our ride to ADD behind a hedge of bougainvilleas.

While we were approaching the aircraft, we came across ground staff.

A woman was first collecting our "Go Pass" : this is a proof of payment for the 50 USD Congolese Departure Tax

Then 2 men were checking the Boarding Passes.
It’s at that time that I glimpsed at mine for the first time, to try to find out where I would be seated.
I saw "51B" which I found rather odd as there was not supposed to be 51 rows on our B737 !
After a few seconds of perplexity I realized that the paper was not mentioning 51B but STB, which meant, according to the man in front of me, that I was "standby" for a seat in the plane
I immediately protested to the officer when he put me aside to let the other passengers proceed. I was especially worried because my wife who had checked in at the same time had a proper printed boarding pass and was allowed inside.

Luckily I spotted the station manager who I had met a few times and waved at him. After a quick explanation he immediately went into the plane and came back with a seat for me. That would be 12A, a window seat. Perfect for taking pictures  
Boarding Pass control, and security check in the background

As Luano airport doesn’t have any X-ray machine or any other security equipment, airlines are checking the bags just before entering the aircraft.
All the passenger luggage were lying on the tarmac next to the plane and we had to identify them before they would be loaded into the plane’s baggage hold.

I had to open my hand baggage to let a lady manually check its content before I was finally allowed into the plane.


Not-so-smiling lady checking my bag


On the stairs to the aircraft

IN FLIGHT

We were greeted by a smiling flight attendant who directed us to our seats.



The flight would be full today and we had to fight to make space in the overhead lockers (as most of the PAX were actually bound to LLW they had already used all the space available).
We finally settled in our seats (after one passenger kindly accepted to swap seat with my wife so we would be sitting together)


View from my seat, as ground staff is (manually) pulling the baggage chariot back to the terminal.

As we were the last passengers to board, the PA started a few seconds after we were seated. We were welcomed to this flight to Addis-Ababa via Lilongwe and the flight time to Lilongwe would be 1 hour and 5 minutes.

The plane started to move and headed to the runway.


Taxiing to the end of the runway. A lady probably living in a nearby village is watching us. I wonder what she’s thinking at this moment.

Performing a U-Turn at the end of the runway.

Gaining speed. You can see the terrible state of the runway. There is a project to renew it but it seems most of the money earned via the Departure Tax has been pocketed so I doubt this renewal will start before I get my grand-children.


We passed next to the terminal while our speed was still increasing.


Liftoff after a bumpy and powerfull takeoff from runway 07 over the bush.


Getting higher, parallel to the N5 road to Malembwe and the Zambian border

After a few minutes of ascension we finally went above the heavy layer of dust covering the land and were finally welcomed by a deep blue sky.


Over the dust of Africa.

As soon as the fasten seatbelt sign was switched off, the crew came with a tray containing glasses of Coke, Orange Juice or water, accompanied by the famous “Ethiopian Jets” snacks.

I started browinsg the inflight magazine, where you can find reports about a couple of cities ET is flying to as well as news about the company.


Article about the future joining of Ethiopian to the Star Alliance network, very good news for me, as I will hopefully be able to merge my Shebamiles and M&M accounts into one.

Before we know it, we were already starting our descent to Lilongwe.


Airshow (sorry for the blurry picture)


Dam during our approach to Lilongwe


Mud road


Just before touchdown on runway 14


Taxiing to the parking area


Lonely aircfaft at a remote stand in LLW (Dash ?)

After a short taxi, the plane went to a complete stop and the passengers leaving at LLW were invited to leave the plane. A bus was soon arriving to bring the passengers to the arrivals hall.


Disembarking passengers heading to the bus.

When disembarkment was completed, the plane was nearly empty as most of the passengers were actually going from ADD to LLW.
A team of Malawian cleaners entered the aircraft and worked for merely 20 minutes, removing the garbage from the seats before inbound passengers would embark.

I took a walk around to stretch my legs and spotted the Malawian Presidential Jet (a Falcon 900EX) parked next to our aircraft.


7Q-ONE, the Malawian new presidential jet.


Terminal Building and ATC tower. Remark the presidential advert welcoming passengers to Malawi. It seems like a pretty modern and well maintained complex compared to Lubumbashi !
Malawi looks like a very nice country to visit. Such a shame ET doesn’t ticket directly between FBM and LLW


Baggage before they are being loaded into the aircraft.

Soon after the cleaning team left the plane, the inbound passengers started boarding.

Now that’s where the funny part starts. A lady pointed my seat and stated it was hers. Confidently, I asked to see her boarding pass, sure that she had been allowed another seat as it happens lots of time for unexperienced travelers to mix up seats.
But hey man, this is Africa and in Africa, everything is possible. That lady actually had indeed a boarding pass indicating 12A as her seat.
When seeing mine, she started to argue that it was not valid as it was hand-written and that she had priority because she had booked her ticket for months. I tried to calm her and to attract the attention of a flight attendant, but they were all busy helping boarding process.
After some time, another passenger came and claimed seat 12B which was actually also assigned apparently blindly by the crew at Lubumbashi.
Finally a FA came by and, after some discussion, most passengers were led to the rear of the aircraft where a few seats were still available.
But the lady absolutely wanted her window seat so I finally let her sit there and relocated myself in 12C which had been vacated meanwhile.
Finally everyone was properly seated and, after the safety video being shown, the plane started to taxi to the runway 32 for departure.


Preparing for takeoff


Air Malawi B737-200 arrived from JNB 25 minutes after us


Malawian landscape


Asphalted road

30 minutes after takeoff, the meal service commenced.
We had a choice between chicken and pasta, I took the pasta and was positively surprised by the quality of the food. Also the salad was really fresh and tasty. It felt like they just grabbed it from a garden across the tarmac  

After the meal, a movie was shown and soon the sun disappeared behind the horizon as we were getting closer to Addis Ababa.

The rest of the rest flight was uneventful (as are most of the flights fortunately !) and we soon started our descent into ADD.

After landing we parked at a remote stand and we were finally bussed to the main terminal building.

TRANSIT AT ADD

ADD airport is a very clean and comfortable airport, compared to its rival NBO. There is a large hall were all the gates are located, along with a decent offer of Duty Free shops selling perfumes, alcohols, cigarettes, chocolates, and some Ethiopian handcraft and food.


Duty Free shop at Addis


FIDS in Amharic…


And in English

ADD has a classical hub schema with most of intra-african flights arriving in the late-afternoon and most of European or American bound flights leaving in the evening.


ADD Corridor Passengers make a nice mix of nationality. Here you will find people from Europe, Middle East, Africa, India and China, all happily shopping and taking pictures everywhere in the airport in a relaxed atmosphere.

After some shopping, we felt hungry and decided to try Ethiopian food at one of the few restaurants available.
I don’t recall exactly what we ordered but it was made of spicy meat with a kind of oily sauce and Injera, the traditional Ethiopian bread.





Soon it was time to board and we proceeded to the gate where a long queue of people had already formed to go through security (each gate at ADD has its own security checkpoint and the metal detectors are extremely sensitive. Everybody had to remove, shoes and belts before being allowed into the metal detector, which made the process extremely slow.

After a mere 30 minutes queue we were finally “airside”. We received a colored sticker on our boarding pass which was supposed to indicate a priority for boarding but once boarding was called, everybody just rushed into the airbridge without observing any of those colors. The ground staff did not do anything to enforce this either.


Boarding Area with the sticker color code definition.

IN FLIGHT

ET704
	ADD	BRU (via CDG)
Scheduled	23:55	08:35
Actual	00:10	08:15
B767-300

Our plane for tonight was one of the old 767 from Ethiopian fleet.
They are still operating those worn-out planes as the 787 Dreamliners which were supposed to be delivered in 2008 are still in the US.
This is a shame, especially given the absence of individual IFE, which makes the 9 hours trip to Brussels really boring.

There’s not much to say about that second flight. We were asleep most of the time and, as we had had a comfortable meal, we skipped the offer for dinner.

Around 5AM Paris time, the lights of the plane were waking everyone and a light breakfast service commenced. It was composed with a bread, some canned fruit salad (big shame for a country with so many tropical fruits as Ethiopia), a yoghurt and some juice + the traditional tea/coffee rounds.
After breakfast, we started our descent into Paris CDG, where outside temperature was announced as 4°C, quite of a shock after 6 months in Africa !

Most of the passengers disembarked in CDG and once again we had the aircraft nearly for ourselves.

A few cabin shots






Legroom is generous


Inflight magazine


Dawn on CDG

After the plane got refueled (why here and not at BRU where the aircraft would undergo maintenance for the whole day ? Well maybe they have a better deal in France ?), we were ready for the last leg of this looong journey to BRU

Takeoff was powerful and we were soon above the low clouds covering Western Europe in this chilly morning.


Just before sunrise, over North of France

After 20 minutes above the clouds, we dived again and soon my homeland Belgium was in sight.

Our arrival at BRU was done via runway 02, which allowed us to fly over the “Forêt de Soignes”


Carrefour Léonard (sorry, extremely blurry, I wish I had a better camera !)


Tervurenslaan towards Tervuren


Touchdown at BRU


Jet Airways tails (9W uses BRU as a hub to connect its India and US bound flights)

Soon the Fasten Seatbelt sign was switched off and we were happily disembarking after a nearly 24-hours journey.


Disembarling at BRU


Down the stairs in freezing Belgium

ON ARRIVAL

We were bussed to the main B (non-Schengen) terminal where a huge queue was welcoming us for passport control (most of African flights operated by Brussels Airlines are arriving at the same time, which explains the crowd at passport control).

Thanks to our EU passport, we are allowed to use the fast lane and we were soon in the baggage claim area.

Our luggage were delivered after 10 minutes and we were landside in no time.

CONCLUSION

Although we are far from the 5* airlines, ET provides acceptably good and consistent service to link Africa to Europe, Asia and the US.

They are usually on time and the food is better than many US and European carriers.

The biggest drawback in my opinion is their very old fleet but this should be solved when the long-awaited 10 Dreamliners will finally be delivered.

ET has also recently acquired 5 Boeings 777-200LR which should start operating this month, mostly on Asian and US routes ; according to the crew.

That’s it ! I hope you enjoyed reading this trip.

If some of you are interested, I might write another TR about the domestic route FBM-FIH which I’m using a couple of times a year currently.

Comments and advices on how to become a better a.netter are certainly welcome

Cheers

Fasty