Airport needs to up its game if it wants tourists

I travelled to Ghana last week with Richard Branson as Virgin Atlantic, his airline, launched a new route to the country. Virgin and British Airways now offer direct flights to Accra, Ghana's capital, from London and I also noticed an Emirates aircraft sitting on the runway.

As Ghana's oil industry takes off, more airlines will want to fly into the country and there are plans for Accra to become a hub for West Africa.

However, that will only happen if some serious money is spent on the airport. Virgin's inaugural return flight to London was a demonstration of how much the infrastructure needs to improve.

The first problem was that the flight manifest could not be uploaded so the pilot could not work out the takeoff weight. Several hundred passengers sat on the plane in the baking heat and humidity getting irritable while the problem was worked on. A couple of hours later we had a solution – but also a flat tyre.

Unfortunately, the air cylinder needed to pump up the tyre was on the other side of the airfield, so another couple of hours were lost. Then the passengers mutinied and seven got off, meaning another couple of hours delay as the inexperienced ground handlers struggled to find their bags.

Eventually, we left six hours late. Not an auspicious start for Virgin's Ghana service but the airline was able to smooth passenger anger by giving everyone a free return flight to anywhere in the world. Accra airport, meanwhile, needs to up its game if it wants more visitors.

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