Welcome to Yemen

The first thing I thought of when we landed in Sana'a was John Candy saying to me (as in Planes, Trains & Automobiles "Welcome to Wichita!") "Welcome to Yemen!"

Getting the aircraft to Yemen was quite an ordeal due to several factors. In the end, we only had one captain to fly the entire trip. Our ever evolving route took us from Goderich, ON to Halifax, NS where we picked up a life raft. From there, we went to Keflavik, Iceland where we spent the first night. Due to a late afternoon departure from Goderich and Keflavik being GMT, we didn't arrive at our hotel until 5:30 in the morning. We departed about 2 p.m. for our next stop, Vienna, Austria. It was my leg and it took 4.5 hours to get there. By the time we arrived, the sun had already gone down. I was really disappointed by not getting to see the approach in to Vienna. Oh well, another time. We refueled, picked up a trip kit and headed to our next overnight, Cairo. We arrived in Cairo at 2 a.m. local and headed to the hotel. We we booked at the Fairmont and it is one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed at. We met up downstairs the next morning, where we found the CEO waiting for us. He joined us on the final leg from Cairo to Sana'a.

Our arrival in Sana'a was very exciting. There were hundreds of people there to greet the aircraft. After about a thousand handshakes, we obtained our visas and headed to our accommodations. We were all extremely tired and needed rest.

The next day, a driver picked us up and took us to company headquarters. They are located in a very modern 10 story glass building. We were personally introduced to the entire management and office staff and given a tour of the entire operation.

There is a lot more and I will post again soon. Here are some photos to accompany the story.

The snowplow/dumptruck is towing the broken fuel truck (on ice) to the aircraft to refuel. Only a photo will do here.

This is the Fairmont Hotel in Cairo

Part of the welcoming party upon arrival in Sana'a.

The view East from my flat. Even though the elevation here is 7.200 feet, the terrain and vegetation looks a lot like Phoenix and the Sonoran Desert.

View from my room. This is a garden with a lot of different vegetables sprouting.

This is the company's very well equipped training center. Computer based training, cockpit mock-ups and whiteboard. Very nice.

This is a group of Yemeni First Officers that took the US pilots out for dinner the day after we arrived. From left: Ibrahim, Basam, Ahmed, Waleed and Mubarez. They are all really outstanding guys and I like them all very much.