Dear KQ...

Dear KQ,

Some of us have been raised to expect nothing but the best. Some of us demand it of ourselves. We are unlikely to shower Kenya Airways Ltd with plaudits for the manner it treats us, the travelling public. If I hadn't set foot inside one of the confined, cramped spaces of a JamboJet, Kenya Airways,  would be the worst airline in the world.

Let us review. 

We have no problem with the manner in which the arses of the providers of cattle class subsidies are licked by the factotums of your airline; that's the benefit of forking over the budgets of mid-size ministries for the privilege of lounging in the business or first class lounges at Terminal 1A. But how can KQ simply refuse to sort us out with some of the most essential facilities for fraught scaredy cats awaiting the klaxon summons to board? We need charging ports and free WiFi, dammit!

Your food is nothing to write home about, chef KQ. It feels as if you went to Kya Maiko, bought a tonne of mutura, stuck it in a blender for an hour, stored it for a decade and then unfroze it for the express purpose of giving us diarrhoea. That food, if that is what it is, feels like punishment for not winning a National Youth Service tender. Have mercy on us.

Look!

Being Kenyan, you are unlikely to improve. Small, incremental improvements will give you the corporate equivalent of hives and hyperventilation. You are like the Safaricom of the airline industry; dominant with a declining customer experience. Nobody likes you and others just partner with you because there's no one else around. If they had a choice, if it wasn't for the slight Schadenfreude of it all, they would stand around your funeral pyre throwing in more logs just to make sure you stayed dead. I bet someone would thrown in a whole can of lighter fluid too.

But being a Kenyan doesn't mean you have to continue being mediocre. These are not the days when the Jogoo crowed from sunup to sundown. The country has moved on; some bits have moved on to better things, many bits have moved on to ever greater mediocrity. You don't want to be mentioned in the same breath as the Kenya Police or, horror of horrors, Nairobi City County. That would just be the death knell for you. You can do one or two things that show us, the little people, that some things can change.

Keep treating the Business Class and First Class plutocrats with the deference their fat wallets demand, but if you keep treating the Cattle Class denizens as if they are bringing the Ebola virus onto your aircraft, we shall have a problem. And for God's sake, when I'm flying to Kigali, and you make that stupid, penny-inching scheduled stop in Bujumbura, could that lot that cleans the plane please, please take showers. It's bad enough that you make us sit out there on the tarmac for an hour, but smelly, armpit-y cleaners are an affront too far.

But the worst thing is the way you talk to us. You are not like North Korea so stop behaving like North Korea! We are not going to rebel and join Fly540 or JamboJet; they suck. You shouldn't go into a panic every time things go tits up. The going tits up bit is very, very Kenyan. But the Silent-like-the-Sphinx bit is getting old. Come out with the information early and repeat it frequently until everyone knows what's what. Whoever told you that all we are waiting for is to sue you for giving us information is an idiot and you should fire them immediately.

Finally, whoever came up with that hideous polyester blend that you shoehorn your flight attendants into is an idiot. Fire them too. They are the face of the airline. We deal with them more than with the robots that man your desks at T-1A. Get them beautiful cottons for the warm months, wool for the cooler ones. Treat them decently; not all will stay for sure, but they will make our flying experience less hostile. That's all we ask.

If you are still listening to the idiots who brought Project Mawingu and the harebrained desire to buy planes before finding out whether the routes could pay for them, you should ignore this screed. But if you ignore me, well, I won't do anything, but you'll remain a shitty airline and that can't be a pretty place to be.

Usiendelee vivyo hivyo.