Mind the wine!
While very small, I visited my Grandmother in Paris. I went on the 'plane as an "unaccompanied minor" which meant I got a very nice air hostess all to myself.

As we were waiting for my luggage to come out onto the conveyor belt thingy, my bag came crashing down really hard out of the doodah, and I cried "Oh no!"

air hostess asks if there was anything breakable in there, to which I reply "yeah - the bottle of wine for my Mum!".

The air hostess shushed me urgently and I then remembered being told not to mention it to anyone....
(teasus likes tea, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 14:08, Reply)

Americans are nice
I work in travel so every now and then I get invited by airlines and tourist boards to go on a trips with them (called Familiarisation Trips or Fam Trips for short). We'd just piled off a Continental flight at New York's Newark Airport (Business Class too, if you please). Getting to passport control there's 10 of us but i go to what looks like the smallest queue. The others get in a longer one. I'm about 4th in line and it's looking likely that i'm going to be first through. However, i hadn't planned that all of the people in front of me would be foreigners from various unusual European countries. The passport guy is getting more and more frustrated and angry because he can't make his instructions to them understood. I think he had to tell them to get a form and join a different queue or something. So, when i rock up the to the desk brandishing my glorious passport of Great Britain (in swanky leather holder) he all but jumps out of his seat and kisses me. He waves my passport at pretty much the whole immigration hall shouting "this here, this is the best passport in the world, the best!!" I start to think that he's going to want to swap phone numbers and addresses and whatnot, but he doesn't. He just gives me a huge smile and says "you have a nice day, sir! NEXT!!" I got through and the rest of the Fam Trip group were there wondering where the hell i'd been for the last 20 minutes. Rats cocks.
( Fray Brentos *mega-belms*, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 14:06, Reply)

Names
Even though I'm as Yorkshire as Ikley Moor, with my dad being of Iranian extraction I happen to have the kind of name that Arab terrorists are proud to have emblazoned across the western media. Tie that in with a passport photo that makes me look like the guy that led the WTC bombings and you've got the potential for much fun and games at the airport...

Except... I've never been stopped, once. I've had all number of illicit goods in my luggage: booze and fags well over the accept limit, weed, blades, swedish porn (all gifts for friends of course) - and I've never even had so much as a second glance off passport control or a snap of the marigolds off customs.

Meanwhile my whiter than white former housemate, who's as clean as a freshly Cillit Bang-ed oven door, gets stopped every time he flies.

I'll regret posting this now, you'll see.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 14:00, Reply)

But of course they do.
After getting through security to the departure lounge at New York JFK, I realised I'd forgotten to send any of the postcards in my bag.

I approached a security guard standing near the metal detectors, watching people put their shoes back on after the extensive search. I asked her if there might be a post box on this side of the barrier.

"There are no post boxes in the airport, sir."

"Oh? Why is that?" I asked, aware that we were currently standing in one of the most secure places on the planet.

She looked at me as though I was an idiot.

"People send bombs," she said.

Truth, or hysterical United States paranoiaganda? You be the judge.
( somegreybloke, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 13:59, Reply)

druggie? moi? obviously not.
On the flight back from visiting my Dad in Hong Kong when I was 16, just as I was about to go through customs, it dawned on me that I was wearing technicolour flares, a similalrly bright waistcoat with buddha eyes on the back, and a cannabis leaf headband. You really couldn't miss me.

I also realised that I might have trouble explaining the cakes of green china tea my Dad had given me.

I really did expect to be arrested then and there....

However, they waved me straight through! I guess I looked too obvious to be smuggling drugs. So maybe if you are a drug smuggler the best thing to do is to look totally whacked out, and they'll ignore you.
(teasus likes tea, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 13:58, Reply)

Brisbane Gayers
Following on from my Japanese Erotica story, I arrived fresh in Brisbane (after being upgraded to club) and made my way to the baggage carousel. Now, let's go back three days, i'd had some particularly smelly weed in my wallet and decided that i'd give it to my mate until i got back. Back to Brisbane now (where i was attending a wedding) and I'd just got my case when this security guard pops up with his sniffer dog (the little cnut). Anyway, the dog starts going garrity at me and everyone starts staring. The guard asks to see what's in my pockets so i hand him my 'smelly' wallet. He takes a whiff and casts me an accusing glance. Opening it, he says, "you like to smoke a bit of weed?" I claimed i'd been to Amsterdam recently, he wants to know why there's no Amsterdam stamp in my passport, I tell him it's because EU countries don't stamp each other's passports and he gives me my stuff back. Easy, i thought. So, when i make my way to the arrivals hall, 4 of the guards mates are there to usher me into a room so they can search my stuff. They take my bags apart, take all my credit cards and basically have a field day. One of them claims that he's found 'traces' of cocaine on my bank card (un-fucking-likely because i've never done it) and the another one dives into my wash-kit only to bring his hand out covered in shampoo. The pressure of the hold much have made it explode. All the while i'm sitting there thinking 'fuck, i've jsut spent 25 hours travelling and they're about to send me straight back. I'll have wasted £600 and missed my mate's wedding'. Then, suddenly, having grudgingly given up any hope of finding a massive haul of narcotics on me, they just opened a door and told me to 'get lost'. Thanks then. Wakners.
( Fray Brentos *mega-belms*, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 13:53, Reply)

Security checks - my arse
On a business trips with a few colleagues I was coming back from Tokyo via Vienna to Munich. No hint of any trouble what so ever in Tokyo, hand luggage was checked without any complaints. Upon arrival in Vienna we had to leg it to our next flight. Only to be stopped at hand luggage check by a security officer telling one of my colleagues to remove the leatherman knife from his backpack. Turns out he had a knife with a 3" blade in his hand luggage. And nobody noticed in Tokyo. What are these security checks good for?
( RedWine President of the S.C.U.M., Sat 4 Mar 2006, 13:46, Reply)

Amsterdam..
First off: I'm one of those people who completely freak out when not knowing where I am, or wher ethe people I'm with are. I even freak out in the supermarket, so you know it's bad.

The trip to Amsterdam Schiphol airport went just fine, traffic was nice, all good. Arrived there a bit early, so we (my mother and myself) had to sit around for an hour or so.

I saw an arcade machine. Not having a console at home, or any games for that matter, I begged my mum for a couple of bucks to play. She gave me some and said she'll be off for a coffee. I didn't even listen to this, and happily played some racing game. When the money was gone and I hadn't won any race, I looked around for my mum. Oh shit.

PANIC!

In my mind I was already thinking how to describe her, asked myself where I had to go if I could never found my mum back, etc. I ran around the waiting area, I think I even screamed for my mummy. In the end I found her, and it was like one of those tv shows where people haven't seen eachother for 30 years or something.

Appaloggies for boringness, but I'm traumatised!
(thick as a brick I think a no, I mean a yes, but it's all wrong, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 13:44, Reply)

Japanese Erotica
I was on my way to Brisbane for a wedding in 2000 and was stuck in transit at Tokyo's Narita airport for 6 hours. I kicked off precedings by leering at a group of about 50 japanese college girls (in looking buff in their knee-length socks and very short skirts) before bashing one out in the gents. Then, without much else to do, I bought a origami book at a book stand, pinched a handful of square notelets from a phone box and whiled away the hours making a different paper animal for each gate of the terminal. Karma did the right thing and saw that when i got on my 8 hour flight to Brizzy, i'd been upgraded to club. How's yer luck?
( Fray Brentos *mega-belms*, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 13:37, Reply)

may contain traces of alcohol
A mate of mine lived in Saudi Arabia, anyways he way flying back there to see his parents, and took with him some bags of liqorice allsorts as they were his dads favourite. It gets to Saudi Customs time, the guard sees the word Liquor in the Liquorice Allsorts, and he gets take away for attempting to smuggle illegal alcohol into a muslim country. took him hours to convince them that they really were just sweets.

length? girth?.... brewers droop more like
(jmg123, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 13:12, Reply)

Vegas, lots of marines, and a 9 seater single prop bucket (rarely doing the tourist thing)
musta been sometime in the summer of 90 and i'm sat in a swealtering coach waiting to take us to the other side of a runway to a hanger with the single prop thats about to take us over the Grand Canyon, but we can't move, we've reached a single file queue of Marines i can only assume going to the gulf or something.

Fuckin thousands of them, trudging along at one step every few secs or so, all looking seriously like an Oliver Stone wet dream, again all in one single line, not one bugger split and would let the coach through.

Nearly a fuckin hour sat there till the coach driver and organiser forced the issue with an officer and we got through.

Through all that, my usually strong stomach let me down in the 9 seater when it lost about a 100 metres straight down in a heart beat, bloody turbulance over the canyon, reckoned it was due to the heat from it.

6 outta the 9 on the plane were sick, luckily not the pilot, but still don't know how sick note (my bruv) didn't either
(1_not_so_careful_owner, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 12:56, Reply)

when i was but an ickle Brainiac
I decided it would be a good idea to liven up waiting to check in at Stansted by pinching my little brother's game boy, and legging it. Unfortunately i legged it straight into something cold, hard and metallic and virtually knocked myself out. When i came too, it became evident that i hadnt run into a trolley as my befuddled 9 year old brain initially thought - i had pelted it headlong into the barrel of an armed policeman's MP5 submachinegun. oops.

_{this was 1996, god knows what would have happened if i had done it after September 11th....}
( Ralph farts in your general direction, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 12:55, Reply)

And I though yanks were bad
last year the misses went to uni in america for a year, so i decide to suprise her by flying out for her birthday. Anyway 1 week before i had the foresight to put my passport in the washing machine, it was still readable - sort of.

So i roll up to heathrow at 6am, the check in desk bint says,
"i can't let you go- the americans won't let you in with that"
(cue look of disgust) so i said, "well i am getting on that plane" (especially as it had cost me £500 of my hard earned student loan) she says "alright but you'll have to sign an indemnity, if the americans won't let you in you'll have to pay us £2k to fly you back again" well i go for it,

spent the entire flight sweating like a peado in school at the thought of being kicked out of the USA, anyways i get ther go to passport control in philiadelphia, and the immigration guy laughs at me and says " next time don't go swimming with your passport" lets me staright on in. cashback

On the return flight the uk equivelent won't let me back into my own country as she thinks it's a fakes passport so i said" fuck off are you sending me back and forth across the atlantic because you have PMT," (cue being taken to a back room to see her supervisor) took 15 minutes of persauding to convince them to get my mum to bring my birth certifcate so that they would let me back into my own country!!! fuckers
(jmg123, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 12:47, Reply)

first ever frisking
last year in John Lennon airport my belt set the metal detector off, enter a slightly large sweaty scouse man with big hands.....

only after finishing did he ask "you are 16 arn't you?" just makes me think what would have happened if i had have said no
( m-a-t-t -- formerly mini hasn't been on here for EVER!, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 12:46, Reply)

My daughter was working in Switzerland
and invited her cousin over for a weekend's beer-punishment.

He eagerly accepted, and kindly agreed to take her a bag of clothes from home.

The bag was of course opened at Geneva Airport.
'Is this your bag, Sir? Did you pack it?'
Yes, of course.

Nephew somehow kept his composure as a stream of girly underwear emerged from the bag, and coped admirably with the appearance of the Bunny suit, complete with rabbit ears and pin-on tail.

Nothing illegal was found so Nephew was soon free to go.

'Pink - not really your colour, Sir...' murmured the Customs bods as they whistled, closed the case and waved Nephew on his way.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 12:12, Reply)

Cool Dude
Not me but a friend of mine.
He had just got back from a nice two week stay in the Canary Islands and had picked up a pretty impressive tan that he thought the ladies would love.
On his way out of the terminal he notices two rather attractive blonde cabin crew, A perfect test to try out his new look. He strolls over to the pair looking really cool and sophisticated and after a couple of Min's gets both phone numbers, result.
He then started to finally make his way out of the building and as he was walking backwards waving goodbye to the two beautiful ladies he fails to notice the stairs leading down the ground floor. He went arse over tit and broke his arm in two places. As a bonus the two cabin crew did administer first aid until the ambulance arrived.
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 11:39, Reply)

Naughty Nightie Nightmare
Mrs Dickus and myself were coming back from Jamaica recently and we were singled out for a luggage check by the bored looking security bloke who probably thought there was an above-average chance of me attempting to smuggle some wacky baccy.

Asked if I'd packed the suitcase myself, I answer yes and proceed to unlock two padlocks, fiddle with the wraparound zips and finally fling back the lid... to display a skimpy silk nightie that Mrs D had forgotten to put into her own case before we locked it.

It also turned out the luggage was overweight, so we bribed the check-in desk bloke to let it through without paying a surcharge - saved me £30!
( Biggus Dickus , it was like that when I found it, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 10:04, Reply)

Brazzaville
Here's a hint! Don't go to places where they are having a war.

I bet none of you have been robbed at gunpoint by anti-government militia men, who were subsequently mown down in a hail of AK-47 bullets in a running battle across the terminal building.

Everyday occurance at Brazzaville Airport in the Congo, it turns out.

I got my head stoved in, they got six hundred dollars. Then, the government turned up with more, bigger guns and killed them all.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 9:39, Reply)

Vomit (lots of it)
Years ago me and Mrs Bixx took a short break in Majorca. Prior to leaving for the airport I decided to eat pretty much everything in the fridge. I snarfed down mayonaise, yoghurts, cheese, coke, ham. The journey to the airport was awful; slow and hot. Her father was driving and had the tendency to roll the car along very slowly in third or fourth gear making the whole thing shudder. By the time we got to Gatwick I felt very headachy and ill.

We checked in and I spent the next hour or so lying down trying to feel better until I reached a point where I knew I was just going to throw up. I bolted for the toilet...back then I remember you had to go down several flights of stairs at Gatwick.

I got to the main gentlemens and burst in. The place was full of people and I just started literally projectile vomiting. I ran for a cubicle with a lone open door and finished up, coughing and spitting. I was caked in it...it was down my shirt and trousers and even soaked into my shoes. It was all over the toilet and floor in the cubicle. Everyone in the toilet was hooting with laughter (like I am now).

I came out of the cubicle, only to see a fat Arab guy bolting in there...I actually heard him unzipping everything and blowing-off as the shit, metaphorically hit the pan. He must have been sitting in my sick.

I made my way back to the wife. I had some shorts in my hand luggage, which I changed into. I didn't really have the foresight (or money) to go and buy a new shirt, so I left it on and my wife broke out her duty-free Anais Anais and gave me a liberal squirt with it. Sick and perfume. Lovely.

I made my way to Spain like that. The bloke sitting next to me on the plane was kind of leaning out into the aisle of the plane with a hand over his face trying to mask the smell. I remember seeing the same bloke at Palma airport a week later...he pointed at me, gave a knowing look and waved his hand in front of his face as if to imply someone had let one go.

Much love
P
(Mr Bixx, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 9:15, Reply)

I was traumatised for life
Last year In an act of desperation I took a contract job in Saudi Arabia. After hearing all sorts of rumours I was pretty worried especially with the security situation. The Marriott had concrete posts outside to protect against bombers, there were machine gun check points everywhere and a small square outside the hotel where they would behead people on a Friday. All in all I was pretty glad to get back to the airport. The taxi driver on the way back pointed out the power pylons that al-qaeda had blown up the week before and at the airport there were seperate facilities for women and a regular "wailer" every hour at prayer time. By now I was pretty nervous, and felt the need to releive my poor bowels big time. After running to the toilet cubicle and giving the bowl a good splattering I noticed one of those bubbler pipe things that you see in arab markets. Wow. These Saudis sure know how to relax and have just gone up in my cultural estimation. Relax, take a dump and a smoke. Heaven. I picked up the pipe, put it to my lips and with a contented sigh pressed the lever and took a good deep breath.

Fucksox. I nearly choked and drowned as my lungs filled with the shitty water from some arabs crap box. These fucking things are for washing your ass. It took me nearly two hours to stop urging and I have never been back to the middle east since.
(Mong The Merciless Older not wiser, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 9:07, Reply)

Only this week...
I got to Sydney airport for a flight to San Fransisco. Happy, holiday mode.

"Can you come over here, miss, for a routine security check"

No worries.

Several confiscated lighters later (wtf?) I got taken to a short check-in queue. Yippee! I think.

Until it transpires that the online booking monkeys had got my first name and surname the wrong way round AND THIS IS A BIG BLOODY PROBLEM!

I had to get officialdom to stamp my passport with an "AKA" (also known as) which took forever and will confuse immigration the world over in the future, when my name appears correctly.

Then in the US I was fingerprinted / retina scanned. As is normal, I understand. Still - I remember the good old days of swanning through airports with several hundred ciggies and a cheeky grin.

Blimey.
( Strangey is present at, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 8:15, Reply)

The African Connection
When I was 12, my family went to Zimbabwe on a foreign-aid contract to help educate the unwashed masses. Stopovers in Amsterdam and Kenya before arrival in Harare; total trip time 31 hours.

I was already fairly exhausted by the time we had our stop in Nairobi. I had a fruit salad when we got there, which let me know that it had been left out in the sun a little too long by resurfacing onto the departure lounge floor.

I was feeling very, very ill by the time we got on our Air Kenya flight. The fact that the aeroplane interior smelled of stale gym shoes did not help one bit. But the worst was still to come.

I have done a lot of flying, and experienced various sudden drops and heavy turbulence, but nothing has ever come close to that flight. The whole aeroplane was rattling like an ancient bicycle the whole time we were in the air. I already felt like absolute death, but when I looked out of my window over the wing, I genuinely thought I was going to die.

The rivets in the wing, I kid you not, were rattling loose in their sockets. The whole fucking aeroplane was about to fall apart! And I wasn't the only one who thought that this was the end -- there were screams every time we hit an air pocket.

When we eventually landed in Zimbabwe, people were crying and hugging each other when they got off the plane. I was too sick to feel any joy at all, I could only just drag myself to my hotel bed where I stayed for several days.

Definitely not one of my most fun travel experiences, but it gives me a warm glow looking back to know that I survived!

P.S. Air Kenya? Not recommended.
(arvana, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 8:12, Reply)

The land of a thousand vertical smiles
I got stuck in Bangkok airport overnight, on my first day ever traveling alone. Not wanting to shell out for a hotel for 6-7 hours (being a student and all), I thought I may have spend a shit night on by bags. BUT, I chanced upon some massage parlor girls who were just finishing work for the night. They had alcohol. They gave copious quantities to me. Even let me stay in their shop(well one stayed with me actually ;)), in the airport overnight. Hot shower, hot food, hot massage, the whole bit.... Gratis!! Welcome to Thailand indeed!
(undypants, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 5:12, Reply)

well we all make mistakes
my brother when scacely out of his teens went 'down south' from aberdeen, landed at heathrow and was slightly piqued after waiting 1 hr with no sign of mates turning up to meet him. Phones them gets father who says that they left to meet you 2 hrs previous, but not to worry I'll come and get you myself and will see you at concorde building. Said brother asks info for concorde building gets reply not here but is one at GATWICK!!!!.
yes blame the Hash.He certainly did.
(austen, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 4:10, Reply)

Bombed out wrecks of planes
Back in 2001, I went on holiday with my family to Sri Lanka. Just a few days before we were due to leave, the Tamil Tigers attacked the international airport and blew up a load of planes.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1454484.stm

Amazingly, our flight home was able to leave on time (literally just a few days after the attack). They hadn't even had time to move the smouldering plane carcasses off the runway. It was all rather eerie seeing dead planes everywhere as we taxied for takeoff.
Needless to say, security was extremely tight. We all got frisked a number of times as we went through the various areas, and a number of the security guards/soldiers did double-takes at the 2-foot-long cinnamon stick we'd bought to take home, clearly mistaking it at first glance for a gun barrel!

It was all quite exciting really :o)
(moik, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 2:26, Reply)

druggy fool
the time i was coming back from amsterdam with a couple of mates, having spent a drug-fuelled 72 hours celebrating my 18th birthday comes to mind.

customs pulled us over and asked if we had visited any 'smoking cafes' while we were there. I replied that we had, but that we weren't stupid and knew that it was very illegal to bring anything into the UK, figuring that if I said we'd just been visiting art galleries, they'd know I was lying anyway.

so they took us off into cubicles and stripped us down to our boxer shorts, but left the search at that.

very trusting; taped behind my bollocks were bags of coke and skunk :-O

not big, or clever.
(globalloon, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 2:06, Reply)

they once asked for a
'johnny rockstar' to report to customs.

best name ever.
( Sunshine Elephant, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 0:50, Reply)

That'll learn me.
Just before getting on a flight from Amsterdam to London, I made the really crap decision of popping a couple of herbal pills and doing exactly what it said not to do on the tin, which was to have a beer.

By the time I was checking in, I was shaking from head to foot, had gone a nasty shade of grey and was sweating like a rapist.

I was searched at the other end (no fucking pun intended!). I think they thought I was a mule.
(Kit-Koo, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 0:41, Reply)

Post 9/11 Drug Paranoia
I once went into the toilets at an airport, and having sat down to lighten my load I noticed a syringe on the floor of the cubicle. Knowing that there was a security guard standing by the urinals and watching the cubicles I gently edged the syringe under the partition into the empty cubicle next to mine with my foot. Almost immediately another traveller entered the cubicle with the syringe in and after a piss and a flush, left.
When I emerged from my cubicle a few minutes later I saw that the security guard was talking to a confused looking man. After washing my hands and leaving the toilets I noticed that two police officers were standing guard outside, and not letting anyone else in. They even had some of their blue-and-white tape ready. Happily, they let me out without a word.
I still wonder if they took the confused guy away for interrogation and drug testing.
(Plyck, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 0:39, Reply)

I went plane spotting
In Greece.
(trousers_, Sat 4 Mar 2006, 0:09, Reply)