Things that airline staff want you to know...

[FlyMayBe]

If you bring the wrong passport to the airport, you will not be allowed to fly on an international flight.

No, the captain will not hold the aircraft for you while you wait for your relative to bring the correct passport in a taxi.

Lost your passport in the airport? Nope. You still can't fly - unless it is a domestic flight and you have reliable photo ID.

I fly Easyjet a lot and they ask almost every time for people to check hand luggage in.

The other thing that happens here is that people stick their carry on bag in the first space they see, which might be row 12, then go to their seat in row 24. So when the people in row 12 get on they end up having to put their bags further back, which is a nightmare when it comes to getting off the plane.

I go to Turkey on holiday once or twice a year.
I always travel with carry on only. I usually mange enough stuff but I can buy a few t shirts/towels whatever for cheaper than the cost of hold baggage. I also wear (must look a sight) a gilet with big pockets for my electronics and liquids (in their plastic bag). This also helps if my carry on has to be put in the hold.
I take an empty bottle through and fill with water once I get air side.

I order sun cream etc on line for pick up in Boots, that way there is no airport high prices or them not having what I want. All bits from my jacket can then go in the duty free bag which the airports have insisted is always allowed on.
Pretty much got it sussed
Except that I fly from Manchester or Leeds Bradford and last year coming home I was casually sitting waiting for the queue to go down when I realised I was at the gate for the Manchester flight and I was flying to Leeds Bradford - which was luckily just the next gate along. If I'd been 2 more minutes I would have probably missed it. As it was, I was last one on and the flight took off within 5 minutes.

I hate on MN there is always someone insisting that their experience is always right

I'm not insisting on anything with regard to water. Except Spain. That has been publicised over there and is fact.

I had an interesting experience with a can of haggis once. Flew to the south of italy to see a friend, she was desperate for haggis as a taste of home. Thought a fresh one would be dodgy so took a tin in hand luggage. No issues flying out of Glasgow. COllected bags in Milan and checked in again for flight south. Very interesting conversation with Italian security - my Italian is non-existent and from their point of view all they could see on the x-ray was a solid lump of metal. They let me through though.

I'm also a knitter but have never had an issue. I usually travel with bamboo circular needles and have never been accused of being about to strangle someone. Last flight it was just endless comments from the crew about what I was making and weren't the colours pretty? Usually take thread snips rather than scissors.

Back in the days when you could check through to your second flight to regional airports, the second flight would wait for you if your flight was delayed and boarding passes could only be printed for you by the airline, I checked through and was given both boarding passes when I did the first check in, meaning I didn't have to go to the transfer desk after the first flight. As I was passing the transfer desk, I spotted a boarding pass with my name on it in the slot on the wall (eye sight would never manage that these days). So I waited and spoke to the person on the desk, checked if the boarding pass was for me (it was) and told them I already had one. I was told all was fine and she would deal with it.

I got on the plane. We waited, and waited, and waited. Eventually, they announced they were waiting for the last remaining passenger.

It slowly dawned on me that I might be the last remaining passenger they were waiting for. I called over one of the cabin crew, told her about the second boarding pass. Turns out that yes, they were waiting for me.

My mum was delayed in the US when all flights were cancelled after 9/11. She had spent a month with me by the time she was able to leave a week after the horrible event. All the new packing restrictions were announced during the week's delay - nothing sharp, not even tweezers, and restrictions on liquids, etc.

So she very responsibly went through her toiletry bag and took out many items for me to post to her later or just use up myself. Then she packed her things including a prescription lotion that needed to be taken with her that fell within the weight limit. She taped it with packing tape to keep it from somehow opening and spilling into her carry on stuff.

She got home to Dublin and found the roll of packing tape complete with its attached two-inch serrated blade in her carry on bag. I suspect one of the small DCs had 'helpfully' put it there. Nobody had seen it despite all the increased security.

Sometimes you just have to brazen it out. I have bought a huge whole jamon back from Spain, complete with hoof sticking out the end of my holdall. No it's not banned to bring this back into UK but I knew once I got it past security, I could get away with it. This was Easyjet, v proud of myself for managing this.

The security guy who looks at the screen whilst your luggage passes through did a double take!

Flying through Bogata (Columbia), the guy in front of me in the queue at security had an unsealed tin of travel sweets (the ones in confectionary sugar). That caused A LOT of raised eyebrows from the security team.

I hate going through security, getting pulled aside for a search, and knowing that my valuables are sitting unattended in a tray for anyone to steal

That always worries me too, though I don't know how they can avoid it

But laptops, ipads, cameras and goodness knows what other expensive technology, all just sitting there for the taking ...

There are a lot of security cameras though, and nowhere for a thief to go. I guess if you realise, as you almost certainly would, very quickly that your stuff was gone, they'd have a good chance of spotting whoever had it?

True enough, bathtime, but an image on CCTV doesn't have a name attached to it and what's the chance of finding just one person in a huge airport, even assuming they tried?

It's not happened to me personally but has to two folk I know, at Miami and Luxor respectively - and on both occasions the staff simply didn't want to know

Barbaraofseville my father in law has had Swiss Army knives taken off him twice when going for flights.

Funniest airport security conflab I saw was a group of the security people trying to decide whether a man's collection of snow globes were acceptable hand luggage.

My funniest day of travel was when I was flying back from a national competition with my dogs and had gone straight from the competition to the airport, so I was still in my competition gear. It was a very late night Sunday night flight, and there had only been about 20 people on our flight, and it was the last one of the night. Arrived at the home airport and was waiting to pick up my bags. Next thing, I've got a bunch of young, in training, detector dogs all sitting at my feet looking at me with tails wagging. Handlers all looking very confused. Turns out they were using the airport whilst it was quiet for the detector puppies and their new handlers to get them used to the airport environment.

My crime? Pockets full of dehydrated chicken.

I love watching the detector dogs. Especially when they let them on the carousel. They are running to keep up, sniffing every bag, tails wagging. And catching criminals!

A colleague once had a detector dog stop by him.

• Oh, I have dogs
• They don't stop for dog smell!

I think he had been in Amsterdam or something and they found nothing. He said he didn't use any drugs.

But once I ended up in the search area because an acquaintance I had met by accident at the bags collection had spoken to a lady for whom the dog stopped while getting out of the plane.
The lady's bags were being searched
We stood there chatting between ourselves until they probably realised we clearly had nothing to do with it. We were told we could leave. But I bet they were watching us like hawks but discreetly.

A sniffer dog in Australia got a bit excited over my rucksack coming into Sydney once - but I'd already told the customs people there was an apple in there so it had already been found and disposed of.

Mostly I declare I have stuff on the way in - they ask me what it is, I tell them, and most of the time they send me on my way without a search. On the odd occasion they have looked, the official was quite keen to know what the 1kg bag of dried cherries was - I explained, and why I had them, and he was absolutely fine with them but wanted to know where he could get some!

When boarding, have your boarding pass and your passport ready, with the photo page open.

But this is exactly the issue. This is true at your airport. However, I have been barked at numerous times for doing just this and told “no passports”. In some airports it differs whether you are flying nationally or internationally, which is even more confusing.

I have never been asked for a passport when boarding at Heathrow. So I would be one of those boarding the plane with my boarding pass only.

I have never been asked for a passport when boarding at Heathrow.

That is odd. Do you mean at the gate or in the plane?

I meant at the plane.

In the UK you definitely have to show your passport after security before boarding the plane. But sometimes there's a 'pre-gate' where they corral up everyone for that flight. After that they don't need to see passports again because they've already checked that everyone has a passport.

You often don't need passports when travelling between some other European countries due to the en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area agreement.

Yes in Heathrow at the gate they scan your boarding pass and passport in machines at 5he gate. After that when you show your boarding pass getting on to the plane, they just tell you where your seat is.

But different airports do do things differently. So if you are only used to one airport then go somewhere else, of course you are not going to realise they do things differently.

I wish they wouldn’t try and take my phone off me to scan my boarding pass, I’m very capable of holding my phone to a barcode scanner,

I wonder if they have ever dropped and broken anyone’s phone

But this is exactly the issue. This is true at your airport. However, I have been barked at numerous times for doing just this and told “no passports”. In some airports it differs whether you are flying nationally or internationally, which is even more confusing.

How is it confusing? Domestic flights (like domestic trains) don’t need passports because the airline can assume you have the right to be in the country already. You don’t need to show a passport if you drive over the border from England to Scotland so equally same for a plane.

International flights require passport (and sometimes visa) checks because if you are denied entry at the border, the airline has to take you back at their cost (law in most countries) so they are incentivised to make sure you’re entitled to enter that country. It will usually only be a check when they scan your boarding card.