Africa and Avgas

Our plans for yesterday were ambitious, as we planned to reach Namibia from Pointe-Noire in one day. But the day started early, and we had another fantastic flight along the African coast. It promised to be a good day. We spotted a lot of oil rigs at the sea. But despite the oil being so close, the prearranged and promised fuel appeared not to be available after landing at our first stop of the day: Luanda, Angola. After five hours of talking and negotiating we were very kindly offered one 200L barrel for 6000 USD. (:
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Naturally, we did not accept this offer. After a long talk (another two hours) with airport management we managed to arrange some fuel at more reasonable terms. Because of the long delay we were forced to stay overnight in Luanda however. We moved our planned departure time to 04:30 today. We left Luanda for Namibia at 0430 this morning, trying to catch up with our tight schedule again!

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9 thoughts on “Africa and Avgas

  1. Hoi Lex, niet zeuren, de inkt voor mijn printer is nog veeeeel duurder!
    En het bier zal ook wel meevallen.
    Vel plezier, (ben jaloers)
    Theo. En elke morgen een beschuitje, is goed voor jullie.

    • Hallo Theo,

      Je hebt helemaal gelijk, zal aan Meiltje vragen om de prijs van AVGas per direct te verhogen naar 30 USD per liter … 😉

      PS: Uiteindelijk niks hoeven te betalen voor brandstof, landingsgelden en afhandeling!

  2. AVGAS is volgens mij nog te krijgen via MAF of een dergelijke organisatie. Meeste kleine vliegtuigen vliegen met diesel. AVGAS wordt in Europa nog maar op 2 plekken gemaakt, indien er behoefte is (Malta en Engeland). Wordt nog een probleem in de toekomst.

    Overigens wat een gave trip. Ik neem aan er tzt een boek over uitkomt?

    Veel plezier op de route.

    • Hallo Andrew,

      Klopt, AVGas is steeds moeilijker te krijgen en wij hebben vaak een barrel van te voren gereserveerd c.q. laten overkomen. In uitzonderlijke gevallen kunnen wij ook op MOGas vliegen maar wij vertrouwen de benzine in Afrika niet zo.

      NB: Boek gaat er komen met uitgebreide verslagen en veel foto’s van dit mooie en bijzondere continent

  3. The art of negotiation is key when flying in Africa. I am glad to hear that you did not accept the ridiculous price for AvGas since if it works with one person they will try it with the next.

    This reminds me of a time when I flew into Sigurir, Guinea and the airport manager was wasting time with filing our flight plan, since he knew the airport would close at 18:00hrs and we would have to stay the night and stay in the local hotel, which probably translated into a nice paycheck from the hotel to the airport manager. This is when the pilot that I was flying with, that had flown for many years in Africa said to the airport manager “if you do not finish our paperwork in time, I guess we will have to spend the night at your house.” This so stunned the airport manager that all he could do was laugh. We then received our paper work a few minutes later and we were on our way.

    One thing I learned, is if you can keep from getting visibly angry and instead get them laughing during negotiations and letting them know that you will not be fooled, one will often be able to talk them back to reality. Of course the disadvantage to this is that wastes time, especially when we do not have to waste, but keeps one from getting ripped off.

    All the best. Keep the blue side up 😉

    • We try to stay calm. I would just sit somewhere on the ground against a wall and do some staring in front of me or sleep a little (or it would look like it). In any case we do not give the impression that we are stressed out. We also make some jokes and laugh a little. So far all worked out quite well except for in Luanda, Angola.

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