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.

Here's another one - buy suitcases with four wheels. Baggage handlers are trained to roll the cases across the hold on all 4 wheels if that sort of case, leading to less damage. 2 wheels or no wheels - your case will be thrown. You may see them placing the cases carefully when in public, but inside the aircraft and in the conveyor area, it's a different story.

Airport systems can be alienating to deal with though. All the cmxcm restrictions on suitcases, take your shoes off, no there's no one who can tell you where your luggage you've been waiting three hours for is, stuck at a boarding gate indefinitely with no staff in sight, pay fifty quid to park for five minutes kind of stuff. And border staff are literally and legally a law unto themselves. So I can understand why people get pissed off.

I would never shout at the airport staff, but am a little sympathetic to those who flew a lot in the 1960s and 70s and 80s. Intellectually, I know things have changed though it took me ages (and several nearly missed flights) to discover that flights are no longer announced over the tannoys at airports. I miss being bing-bonged! And of course, the gate used to be a two minute wander down a corridor. Now its a 30 minute journey via travellator, lift, and in one recent case - can't remember where I was - train journey - between departure lounge and gate.

I am really not that old, and cope with a pressurised job, work a smart phone and computer, can understand what teenagers say, but I am only just getting my head around the fact that you now have to approach an airport as a strategic mission, rather than as part of the holiday.

(I'm not as bad as dh who has twice now had objects confiscated at the airport - think Swiss army knife keyring - whilst trying to board a plane!!)

It's changed a lot even since the 90s. Much more tense these days with security staff barking at you over putting things in trays etc. I used to regularly fly into Stansted and you could just wander past the often unmanned passport control. Can you imagine? But it certainly happened.

A work colleague handed his, his wife and his daughters passports to the person on passport control who must have dropped it. Despite him begging her to look more carefully behind the desk she denied dropping it and refused to check.

He was understandably upset at not being allowed to fly and had to spend Xmas at home alone.

He was contacted about a week later. His passport had been found behind the desk. Exactly where he said it must be.

When we flew last summer there was a couple in front of us where something similar happened. The man had put their passports down on his suitcase (on the scales) to get something out his jacket pocket. The check-in agent switched the belt on to move the case on just at the same time. In a split second, it jolted the passports off onto the belt and straight down a crack at the side. They checked us in during the commotion & the couple were then waiting for an airport engineer to come and dismantle the belt to see if the passports could be retrieved in time for the flight. I felt really sorry for them because they told the agent they were part of a larger group going on a special celebration trip, something akin to the Orient Express, & were going to miss the rendezvous if they had to reapply in person for new emergency passports.

The 90s were 20 years ago, a lot has changed in that time. International terrorism, the Internet, computers and smart phones, low cost airlines. People have had plenty of time to get used to how it all works. The information is all available.

Every single boarding pass I've ever been given has said that there no gate calls and you had to watch the screens and go to the gate at least 30 or 40 minutes before the scheduled departure time. It's not hard and if you think it is, perhaps you should find an adult to help you or stick to private jets.

I have always found most security staff lovely. I always think to myself that they are just normal people doing their job and try to greet them with a smile and a cheery hello how are you. The security at Doncaster Airport are particularly delightful. I think people often expect them to be scary and act like it is a sombre process. Though admittedly it can be stressful sometimes as different airports seem to have different rules.

I was dealing with desk staff last year after my first leg of a long haul flight was cancelled and was talking them into re-booking me on a nicer airline that what has been proposed as an alternative.

Beside me was a South African couple absolutely kicking off, to the point where the desk agent’s manager had to start warning them they wouldn’t be allowed to board. Why? She’d booked the flight in her married name but hadn’t bothered to update the name in her passport, thinking it would be fine. Some people are thick as mince.

The one thing that makes me rage in airports is my fellow passengers at security, who don’t bother sorting liquids, emptying their pockets of change etc until they are at the top of the queue, at which point they act like they’ve never been through security before. It’s 2019 people!

Then it’s men (always men) who need to redress themselves at the conveyer belt (rather than taking their tray to one of the many handy desks provided for such purpose) & never bother to re-rack their tray, holding everyone else up.

Maybe they have never been through security before.

In my entire life I have flown 8 times plus return journey and I’m 45.

Notverygrownup, that made me laugh as between us DH and I have had 3 or 4 mini swiss army knives confiscated. last time DH realised he was yet again at gatwick with his mini knife in his wallet, so he found a indoor tree and buried his knife in the soil and on his return, he unearthed it!! Imagine if that had been caught on CCTV!

Flying is for many people the only time they use public transport and for many the only thing they do where there are severe consequences for being late (see other thread about some people's attitudes to lateness). Then there is the fear of flying by many.

So forgetting things or feigning ignorance does not surprise me.

@BarbaraOfSeville there was plenty of terrorism and airline hijackings throughout all the decades of mass airport transit until now. I don't see what has changed particularly other than that airport systems are more hostile, rigid and alienating than even 20 years ago. There's more scope for staff acting like arseholes "because terrorism" as though it were some recent invention and we're all expected to just roll along with it. Thank you for your misplaced aggressive concern but I can actually cope with it: it's just an observation.

@forallthesaints people who find being consistently late as quirky or funny deserve to finally realise there can be consequences. I know the thread you refer to and it's gobsmacking how many of us have rude people in our lives who think their time is more valuable than ours

The thing I really didn’t like was when ds was a toddler (& we now know he is autistic) that when my shoes set the alarms off and I had to have an extra search the staff would not allow my dad or husband to come through before I was taken aside and ds was left alone to wander off.

There was no reasoning with them that leaving such a small child alone in a strange place was not safe.

there was plenty of terrorism and airline hijackings throughout all the decades of mass airport transit until now. I don't see what has changed particularly other than that airport systems are more hostile, rigid and alienating than even 20 years ago.

Are you really that forgetful?
9/11 happened.
The highjackings that happened before had quite different outcomes.
Even as Lockerbie, which was when airlines stopped flying with suitcases without the passengers on board.
Once it was realised that terrorists were prepared to use airplanes as weapons to kill 1000s of people, things changed dramatically.
Surely that's not hard to understand.

9/11 was caused by intelligence failures which are not remedied by shouting at people to put things in trays.

Heathrow will become more alienating if the 3rd runway and 6th terminal are built and BA and its code share partners have more dominance. A second runway at Gatwick will be a better option.

The other thing that should be stopped or made very difficult is the behaviour of Ryanair in frequently changing luggage and other rules to try to get more money from people.

Agreed on both counts. BA is basically now a budget airline with inflated prices trading on its historical reputation. Ryanair is blatantly out to screw every extra penny from you that they can by continually changing the already restrictive and arcane requirements as to what bag you put your stuff in.

Interesting that some security staff are nice. I’ve always found them to be poker faced and almost robotic and genuinely assumed it was part of the job description to be a bit expressionless and scary, so no-9pne feels they can sweet-talk them into ignoring a slip up or allowing them to get away without the full security scan. Particularly noticeable when wrangling small dc - not even a smile or a glimmer of empathy.

Depends where you are I guess. US - mostly arseholes, probably shoot for fun, weird gun thing going on in general. Spain - quite charming really, shambolic in comparison with others but it seems to work. Russia - fucking terrifying even morseso when you know what backup they have. UK - on a level with small town nightclub bouncers ie shouty and probably not well endowed. Australia - thick but powerful, mostly racist. Germany - surprisingly reasonable. Etc.

It's the security who always bark at you that you've left your sunglasses on top of your head. Like you've commuted a major crime.
Relax I forgot I had them on my head they are not stuffed with 40kilo of coke.

Well, I wasn't airline staff, but I worked airport security. And for what it's worth, I was really lovely to our passengers. I was always mindful of the fact that not everyone was a regular traveller. That the security rules were stressful and confusing for some pax, for any variety of reasons. That they may have had to sit in unexpected terrible traffic en route to the airport, or their bus/train was delayed, and so they were stressed and in a panic. That not everyone was travelling for a lovely holiday, some were flying home to see a terminally ill relative/attend a funeral. I understood that travelling with small children was hugely stressful for pax, so would entertain their toddlers while their parents were being frisked, chat to their older children who were curious about, for example the metal detectors. I held many a baby while their parents were going through the metal detectors, having their bag searched etc. I very often spent my half hour lunch break walking pax who were a bit lost and bewildered by the airport layout to their gate, or back to the main desk at security where all left items were put, so we could check if the passport, or wallet, or watch that they'd left behind was there. As of course, someone in a uniform walking through an airport is always going to be stopped by pax with questions. And I certainly wasn't going to say "no, sorry, I'm on my break, go to the information desk". I also had lots of great chats and laughs with pax. That was very long winded, but I just wanted to point out that all airport security staff aren't stern-faced or difficult or unreasonable. All the staff on my team were the same. Though in fairness, our training period involved a good bit of customer service training, as well as the obvious training in the actual security aspects of the job.

That being said, the one thing I used to want to yell was "yes, water is a liquid". As despite the fact that we had what in our airport was called a 'loader', a staff member who would help pax load their belongings into trays, explicitly ask if their luggage conatained any liquids, aerosols, gels or pastes, remind them to take off their belts, remove wallets from arse pockets etc. Many times a day a bag would be pulled for searching, and we'd have to explain to the pax that it was because the x-ray showed a bottle of liquid much larger than allowed. To which they'd respond "yes, but it's just a bottle of water". Ah yes, but water is a liquid! That was the one thing that used to get on my wick.

Fucking hell. That was a ridiculously long post. I like to witter on, it seems

I was allowed to fly from Greece to UK with no passport. They accepted my young persons railcard instead. 1992.