V.I.P. passenger

This is the aeroplane which Andrew normally flies:

A cessna 206, a 6-seater plane (including Andrew's pilot seat).  Andrew took this photo when he was working up in northern Tanzania, where the "air-strips" are basic, as you can see from his photo! His plane is ideally suited for such basic conditions.

Last week, right up until Thursday, Andrew was scheduled to fly his plane, as pictured above, from Dodoma to Nairobi to pick up a V.I.P. passenger: none other than the newly installed Archbishop of Canterbury! Andrew was due fly early on Friday to go to Nairobi, pick up the archbishop Justin Welby and his wife and 2 other members of clergy and fly them back to Dodoma. With such an exciting passenger on the cards, we were all busy speculating at MAF Dodoma, wondering how we could get some photos and maybe even get to meet Andrew's passenger!

However, when MAF Kenya realised that a world-renowned V.I.P. had booked to fly with our organisation from Nairobi to Dodoma, they stepped in with the offer of a much larger and more comfortable aricraft: one that we do not have use of in Tanzania. Since Andrew does not fly this aricraft type, his schedule was changed and one of MAF Kenya's pilots now had the honour of flying our esteemed passengers down from Nariobi. And so it was that Justin Welby and wife and clergy colleagues arrived in Dodoma on Friday afternoon in this rather posher Pilatus PC12 MAF plane:

Since Andrew was no longer booked to fly on Friday, his work took him into the hangar, where his day now meant office-tasks and flight-following, rather than ferrying VIPs from one East African country to another, which also meant a far less stressful day for Andrew!
Another one of our MAF colleagues got in amongst the action on the run-way when the MAF Kenya plane landed here in Dodoma, getting permission to take photos despite the high security. He took some fantastic shots of the action. So for your interest, here are a couple of his photos of the big event on Friday afternoon! (Photo credits to the Beckwiths- thanks very much :-))