On a Wing and a (Soccer) Player
Lima, Peru — A plane carrying Gambian soccer fans to Peru made an unauthorized detour and faked a fuel emergency to land in time for the West African nation’s game in a world youth tournament….The Air Rum plane carrying 289 fans bypassed immigration formalities in Lima by landing in the northern city of Piura about two hours before the African youth champions kicked off against Qatar in the World Under-17 Championship. — Reuters
LET’S NOT MINCE WORDS: This was fraud on Air Rum’s part. But boy, when was the last time anybody even dreamed of getting service like this — an emergency landing to avoid missing the start of a game — from a U.S. airline? How much does Gambia attribute its victory to these fans’ presence? And isn’t “Air Rum” the most wonderful name for an airline? It would be like an American carrier calling itself “Juiced Pilot Express.”
These and other questions will remain unanswered by legitimate sources, but my hunch is if I’d been able to corner Dawda Jawara, a fictional marketing director for Air Rum, the conversation might have gone like this:
Loose Cannon: I want to be clear on something. This wasn’t a case of the soccer fans taking over the cockpit or anything like that. The airline crew was a willing part of this deception.
Jawara: Right. With an elite charter service like ours, for enough frequent flyer points passengers can have almost anything they want, right up to a turn at the controls. We’ve actually found several passable pilots that way.
LC: Your plane was met by fire trucks and police cars, and there’s some question about whether this is going to be a major international incident. Surely there are amenities you can offer aside from disrupting another nation’s airport.
Jawara: Like what? Peanuts are a major Gambian crop, but ever since people with allergies effectively banned them from airplanes, offering them as a premium is no longer an option. If you’re going to eliminate peanuts, you have to be prepared to add something like an impromptu wheels-down.
LC: The airport where your plane landed is in Piura and serves only domestic flights. You landed a very large aircraft designed for international travel. Didn’t this put those passengers at risk?
Jawara: Our pilots are quite comfortable with abrupt takeoffs and landings. Gambia is 48 kilometers from north to south. There are parts of our country where, if we taxi too long, we wind up in Senegal.
LC: Was there no thought about repercussions when you were doing this? According to reports, the Peruvian government seized your plane.
Jawara: Nonsense. A large plane like the L1011 can’t be ‘impounded.’ Nobody makes a tire clamp that big. The Peruvians just threw a tarp over it where we put it down and hoped nobody would look too hard for it.
LC: One account said the fans you chartered took over five hotels in the city. Did they get frequent-flyer miles from that?
Jawara: Of course, but Air Rum has already laid claim to those. Do you realize how many points they burned up by having us do this little stunt? In addition to the miles they redeemed, they now owe us 25 million more. We’ve got their airline business locked up until their great-grandchildren are old enough to fly. Any other questions?
LC: What’s the Mandinka word for soccer hooligan?
