Flights of fancy in Bhisho

As the Bhisho airport brouhaha gathers steam, spare a thought for Maki Ndingaye, who once had the misfortune to run this erstwhile white elephant.

Back in 2005, Ndingaye’s fiefdom at “Sebe’s Folly” comprised 28 staff, including four air traffic controllers, firemen and their trucks, and an operating budget of R786,000.

Only one thing was missing: flights. By the time the Sunday Times rocked up that year to do the story, not one scheduled commercial flight had landed at Bhisho in the 10 years since Ciskei International Airlines had crashed, taking “president” Lennox Sebe’s airline dreams down with it.

Erratic air traffic consisted of ministers coming and going in chartered jets and students from nearby flying schools doing touch-and-goes.

Meanwhile, the air traffic controllers and firemen sat at their posts, played cards and waited for better days.

Given that somnolent state of affairs, it’s probable that the excitement of United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and his personal air force’s arrival last week would have given the controllers a collective heart attack.

The sheikh, his entourage and equipment reportedly filled about 15 aircraft, including C-17 Globemasters, Boeing 787s,  Boeing Business Jets and a Gulfstream G650.

Some of the C-17s produced a fleet of helicopters from their holds, including a hefty Chinook, a machine more usually seen carrying troops into battle.

As the Eastern Cape government hasn’t kept the airport up to scratch in recent years, the sheikh apparently spent R20m rebuilding the runway, in return for possibly getting a lease on the place.

I do hope Ndingaye saw the armada arrive and agreed that his lonely years of keeping the runway lights burning were not entirely wasted.