Coming In On A Charter: Pre-flight Preparations Part 1

I was out of South Sudan on R&R last month, hence the lack of posts. I came back in last week with my teammates the Farises on a MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) charter flight from Nairobi. My team charters a small MAF plane a few times a year to bring in people and freight, and I thought I'd give you an idea of what this involves, in this post and the next two posts.

Pre-flight Preparations, Prior to Flight Date

1.     A few months in advance: Reserve charter with MAF Kenya. Based on the weight of the passengers, the pilot, fuel, seats, etc., MAF gives us a number of kilos of freight we can bring in (on this last flight it was 790 kilos = 1,742 lbs.).

2.     A few days in advance: Gather items to bring into South Sudan, whether purchased in North America or in Nairobi (we do a lot of shopping in Nairobi, for things that we can't get in SS or that are much more expensive there; for example, many food items, large plastic barrels for storing water, plastic pails and basins, brooms, toilet paper, foam mattresses, paint, medicines, water filters, building materials, kerosene for cooking, etc., etc.).

A few of my boxes last week

3.     Repack most items into boxes or suitcases. Label each box with owner's name, summary of contents, organization, number and destination. Weigh on scales at guest house and calculate preliminary weight of everything we want to take in.  The photo on the right shows some of the things I packed last week: raisins; cans of tuna, chicken & veggies; spices & condiments, insecticide, rye crackers, rolling pin, peanut butter, honey.

4.     Prepare customs list. This includes all boxes, suitcases and loose items leaving Kenya, listed by number, with a short description and $ value of the contents of each.

Loading up the car at guest house to head to MAF (had to make two trips)

5.     Two days before flight: Transport everything except carry-on items to the MAF building at Wilson Airport for weighing and labeling. Calculate total weight. Decide if we need to remove things or can add more things (usually it's the former!).

Teammate Daniel unloading things at MAF

Daniel put the things on the scale

 I wrote the labels and kept a list of the weight 

of each item

A labeled box top. Our destination: MALU = Malualkon, a small airstrip about 8 km from our village

More of our freight

Labeled freight piled at MAF

 

6.     Email customs list to customs agents, then go to their office to pay fee. (Fortunately the office of the agent we use is located just down the street from MAF.)