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Greetings from Mogadiscio,

Alxamdulilah, we have made it safe and sound to Aden Abdulle international airport in Mogadiscio, the only airport in Somalia, perhaps, that can be mistaken for an actual airport in the international standard.

It took us roughly trying two hours from Galkaio to Mogadishu with a short layover in Cadaado for the purpose of replenishing passengers. We were on board, a relic of an aircraft, of an unknown make and model, (I am quite certain someone on the ‘crew’ would have kindly taken the trouble to share this trifling detail with us, had the damn thing been equipped with onboard announcement device) owned and operated by the recently established, Cadaado based, Central Air.

This latest addition, the cream of the crop, the pride of the industry, if you will, in the already congested Somali air space, should basically be considered yet another piece of junk on a long list of junks from the scrap yards of Ukraine and other old Eastern bloc countries; these once defunct and in all likelihood grounded as unsafe to operate planes, are now nicely repackaged as Dream-Liners of sort and dominate, with impunity it seems, the beautiful Somali blue skies and oddly pass as viable passenger carriers. One more reason why the government should urgently bring back the state owned and operated Somali Airlines.

Why nobody informed us, the passengers of this plane, of the fact that an AC on airplane is nowadays considered a luxury is beyond me. Imagine our dismay, when, on a clear, sun-drenched, very hot April day, we have boarded on this plane and it suddenly dawned on us the damn thing had no functioning cooling system whatsoever! Subsequently the extremely hot temperature inside the plane was so dangerously suffocating (it felt pretty much like an oven, in fact) that it is only with grace of merciful Allah that some ailing elderly man/woman or an infant, has not succumb to the steaming heat and die on route. And to make matters worse, sharing space with thousands of cockroaches, in troop formation, were added to the list of inconveniences we had to endure during this dreadful flight. Needless to say, most of the passengers on this flight were, to put it mildly, pretty much pissed, and as a consequence took collective note to never fly with Central Air again. Surely, friendly skies these are not.

Subxanallah that sounds like a really bad nightmare! As if flying wasn't terrifying already.
Never thought I would say this but makes me truly appreciate my experience on African Air.

U have chosen. Jubba ama dallo

What in the hell is Central Air?

@ the irony of the name of that oven airplane.

AishaWaqooyi, do you want people to die of a heart attack? Daalo Airlines is a roller coaster ride 35,000 ft in the air. Jubba and African Express are the best

Subxanallah that sounds like a really bad nightmare! As if flying wasn't terrifying already.
Never thought I would say this but makes me truly appreciate my experience on African Air.

Insomalia, it was an awful experience for all concerned and a one I would rather personally forget about. I am not familiar with African Air you flew with, but from my own experience and from what i heard from others, all passenger carrier currently operating in Somali are just beyond terrible. Some may be relatively less terrible than others, but they sure all stink to high heaven.

Subxanallah that sounds like a really bad nightmare! As if flying wasn't terrifying already.
Never thought I would say this but makes me truly appreciate my experience on African Air.

Insomalia, it was an awful experience for all concerned and a one I would rather personally forget about. I am not familiar with African Air you flew with, but from my own experience and from what i heard from others, all passenger carrier currently operating in Somali are just beyond terrible. Some may be relatively less terrible than others, but they sure all stink to high heaven.

My bad, I meant African express. I'm functioning on three hours sleep. But yeah they need an upgrade. We flew with them from Dubai to Berbera and then it was scheduled from Berbera to Bosaaso . After waiting four hours we get told it isn't coming today but "maybe" tomorrow lool so we ended up taking a car from Berbera. As you probably know there isn't a road that connects Berbera to Bosaaso directly so we had to go through Burco, Sheikh, Lasanood and Garowe with the worst roads ever. When we got to Garowe we were like we can't take this car ride anymore so ended up staying there for a bit

What in the hell is Central Air?

@ the irony of the name of that oven airplane.

AishaWaqooyi, do you want people to die of a heart attack? Daalo Airlines is a roller coaster ride 35,000 ft in the air. Jubba and African Express are the best

Thank you Indeed Tatanium for pointing out the irony of it all!! air, the very thing we were most deprived of in the interior, was painted all over the exterior of the plane.

Subxanallah that sounds like a really bad nightmare! As if flying wasn't terrifying already.
Never thought I would say this but makes me truly appreciate my experience on African Air.

Insomalia, it was an awful experience for all concerned and a one I would rather personally forget about. I am not familiar with African Air you flew with, but from my own experience and from what i heard from others, all passenger carrier currently operating in Somali are just beyond terrible. Some may be relatively less terrible than others, but they sure all stink to high heaven.

My bad, I meant African express. I'm functioning on three hours sleep. But yeah they need an upgrade. We flew with them from Dubai to Berbera and then it was scheduled from Berbera to Bosaaso . After waiting four hours we get told it isn't coming today but "maybe" tomorrow lool so we ended up taking a car from Berbera. As you probably know there isn't a road that connects Berbera to Bosaaso directly so we had to go through Burco, Sheikh, Lasanood and Garowe with the worst roads ever. When we got to Garowe we were like we can't take this car ride anymore so ended up staying there for a bit

InSomalia, I too have flown with African Express from Nairobi to Galkaio recently, and though it was far from being anywhere remotely close to ideal, at least we did not overcome with a scorching heat. Now, this might very well have more to do with the fact that we took off from Nairobi 5:30 AM than anything else. To be fair though, I think the Central Air plane was certainly much bigger, and looked, in outward appearance, at least, a bit more decent of a shape than the two-engine African Express.

What in the hell is Central Air?

@ the irony of the name of that oven airplane.

AishaWaqooyi, do you want people to die of a heart attack? Daalo Airlines is a roller coaster ride 35,000 ft in the air. Jubba and African Express are the best

Dallo step up now they hve the same planes as African iyo jubba

You probably flew an old Russian Illuyssian or an Antonov if you came in from Cadaado and those jets are very very old. Why would you choose to fly this new airline called Center Air is beyond me. They are less than six months old and now are flying to Kismaayo and Beledweyn also. Stick to Jubba or African express.


Aishah
Daallo is almost non existent in the Somali skies now. They pretty much lost to Jubba and African express and worst their prime destination which was Djibouti to Dubai is now served by FlyDubai which basically sealed their demise.

Had the same experience last summer with Jubba airways, in Djibouti. I'm telling you it was the worst thing eveR: imagine being locket up in small airplane in that Djiboutian heat with no air condition and in the Middle of ramadan where many people where fasting!
we had at least two people fainting; this old lady was just cursing Jubba the whole time and people where like allah bisinka habarka nkadaa diyaaradu yay nala dhicine LOOL. And there was also this guy who was gun wounded from Xamar on his way to mogadishu felt so sorry for him.

But the worst thing was; because of the delay none of the passengers could reach their connecting flights from Dubai, which meant we had to stay in the airport for more than 24h before we could get any contact with the jubba people and they disclaimed all responsibility
Long story short after much complain to the airport managers, they where forced to come and do something or they would have to pay a big fine. After more than 48h some of us where lucky to get tickets paid by them others not so lucky and had to spend another 24h in the airport.


Never Ever somali airline for me ufff!!! ETHIOPIAN AIRLINE ALL THE WAY

My God!