SAA and Acsa's secret 10 commandments finally unearthed

Having spent two-and-a-half hours wandering, lost, dazed, misdirected and alone, through the confusing labyrinthine catacombs of Ortia (m.c.k.a. Johannesburg International Airport) last night, I beg some wealthy and wise entrepreneur to urgently begin marketing a “Survivor SA” kit to save body, sanity and soul. The airport ordeal followed a horrendous 110-minute hellride from the West Rand to JHI and a 70-minute ordeal back, to cumulatively make the entire Herculean task 330 minutes or five-and-a-half hours just to collect ONE passenger!

Like you, I swallowed all the spurious spin-doctoring around this “wonderful, state-of-the-art” airport and its great security and wonderful, welcoming, helpful hordes, until I tried meeting my son, who flew in on a record-breaking uncomfortable flight from Dulles Washington, DC via Dakar on SA 208, there last night.

Similar to my own experience a few months ago — and those of six other people I know since — the moment SAA and its evil alter ego, Acsa, get their rapacious claws into you, you’re essentially fucked. And that is the gospel truth.

Thanks to a research grant from National Geographic Society (of which I am a member), our meticulous team has unearthed the long-lost “Secret Codex of SA Airways and the Airports Company of SA”. In true biblical fashion, the Ten Commandments these pestilential abominations live (and presumably die) by are:

The Ancient Codex reads:

“1. Thou shalt ensure maximum distress in all check-in queues no matter which land thou findest thyself in.
2. Thou shalt ensure passengers are seated in such manner as to ensure maximum discomfort – unless such passenger shalt pay through their noses or are members of the ANC (all hail the glorious name!)
3. Thou shalt leave no stone unturned to ensure baggage is lost at least once and not returned for many, many moons.
4. Thou shalt always ensure that no acceptable service is provided to ease the discomfort, pain, hunger, thirst, blood, sweat and tears of passenger unless, lo, they pay these vast amounts for thy exceptional kindness. Guard, though, lest they should come to expect this from thee for thy lords and masters have commanded thee otherwise.
5. Remember, that thou shalt offer no help at all, no matter how distressed the foul trash is that shalt ask of thee, for thou art holy beyond holiness, and aloof beyond the unwashed mewling masses.
6. Always ensure that thou shalt send confused people in all the wrong directions and shalt speak in tongues understandable only to thine own self. Thou shalt snap and snarl and only speak well when they are paid by the miserable supplicant.
7. Under all circumstances thou shalt always speak to the filth in a manner befitting their ignorance, confusion and second-class citizen status, for they are not worthy to lick the bubblegum off thy boots.
8. Shouldst thou be a holy and superior officer of the law, thou shalt treat every supplicant with extreme prejudice and loathing and as a suspect, and always send them to the wrong back hole of despair, for, verily, it is their only just reward.
9. Should the supplicant be a white person, that shalt treat him with utmost loathing as is becoming of his or her Samaritan status.
10. Under no circumstances shalt thou stoop to help the lost person seeking his or her car, for thy masters have made ORT in the image of Hell with a million paths to Purgatory. It would be better they wander alone in the darkness forever without salvation and their exit ticket shalt expire before thou raisest one finger to ease their suffering.

Remember that thou keep holy all these Laws of the Most Hallowed SAA and Acsa, praise their sacred names now and forever, for they are the servants of the Most High Jacob of the tribe of Zuma, his servant Pope Sibusiso I, Archbishop Nathi, the most high apostle Zwelinzima and all their Pharisees and Sadducees of the Tripartite Alliance.
Thus it is written.”

Heaven help the poor gullible idiots due here in just more than 250 days to watch some footie.