Wednesday, October 8, 2008

EU Trip 2008 - The D-Day

On the D-day we took the airport shuttle to the airport. Our route was Denver- Detroit-Amsterdam-Edinburgh. On arrival at the airport we were told that our flight to Detroit was delayed and hence we would go to Memphis instead of Detroit. The northwest clerk at the baggage checkin counter told us to do a kiosk checkin since there was a big line and lot of chaos. We could not scan our passports through the slots since we hold Indian Passports, and they are not scannable. So we told the clerk that she will need to check us in the old fashioned way. I asked her how would we catch our next flight which was supposed to be from Detroit to Amsterdam, since according to the new plan they were sending us to Memphis. She was confused and then told us we would reach Amsterdam as planned. So my next question was will we have to go from Memphis to Detroit to catch our flight to Amsterdam. For some reason that seemed to have pissed her off, since she told us we would have to wait for 5 hours more if we needed to goto Detroit so badly. What kind of comment was that!!!!... I told her that I was confused as to how do I catch my next flight since the route was now changed and that did not mean that I have to fly through Detroit. The dimwit (her name was Kimberly) then told us that she will put us on another flight from Memphis to Amsterdam and that it would reach Amsterdam at the same time as the flight from Detroit would have reached. This was all I needed to hear and all the previous remarks were totally unnecessary. Well but not for our bonehead apparently. Before she gave us our boarding passes, she scribbled 4 S's on them. I did not ask her what it was as I had no more patience to talk anymore with her. So we headed to the security check. Thats when we learnt that the 4 S's meant that we were Quad-S'ed. It seems, every one in 10 people are randomly selected by the computer to head towards special security screening. Well I did not think that we were chosen too ramdomly though after our long chat with Kimberly. They opened our carryon bags and removed everything in it, told us to seperate out all liquids and gels into ziploc bags, remove all metal, shoes etc from your body and pass through the T-Ray scanner, after which they frisked us manually. Aarnav was made to pass through the scanner 3 times just because he kept jumping all the time when inside it. Now I did not know that this scanner is a controversial machine until afterwards when Anant told me about it. I felt extremely humiliated and broke down into tears. This was not a good start for our trip ahead. Anyways I calmed down in the train to the terminal and cursed Kimberly some more to get it off of my chest. Then we took our 3 flights without any more action thankfully and reached Edinburgh safely. Our trip had started finally.

5 comments:

Prachi said...

What kind of scanner? the baggage scanner? or those door frame metal detectors? the baggage scanner is an x-ray machine that sees through bags. how can they put any human being into that?

sanikajc said...

ha ha ha... aga bai it is a T-ray scanner for human beings. Its a new addition. Its a rectangular booth-like box. They can see through clothes until the skin level and also upto 1 inch under the skin level of a human if needed. Thats the controversy. It is humiliating bcoz it is the computer version of a strip search.

Adisha said...

OMG ! Do they actually do That ? Weird !!

I know about the scanners. Learned about them recently, though didn't know they were already in effect. Creepy na ?! I'm so sorry , must have been heck of a journey, just getting there...

I swear, it's a nightmare, travelling by air in the US. I can't imagine why they turn it into such a chore . They provide No service whatsoever...

Myself had horrid time travelling to memphis .... It was saaaaaaaaad... Well, still awaiting to hear about the next leg of your trip ...

picturesque said...

I have noticed this too...these airline personnel -- air hostesses/stewards, people at the counters....all of them are super polite to these goras and soooo bugged even if we ask the simplest questions. I even saw some of them make faces the last time we went to India. And they call themselves professional ??? wonder if they have been taught to make faces at colored people in economy but not at anyone in first class !!!!!

Jimit Shah said...

Whoa! Quite a torrid time you guys had to go through I must admit.
I have never seen a T-Ray scanner myself but a quick google search revealed that it is quite humiliating.
As upset as I feel about all these security measures, I feel that it is a good way of handling things. Does make me feel secure at least. I'd be quite skeptical taking flights from God forsaken places.
But anyways. ... All is well that ends well. Finally tum log ko Amsterdam pahucha diya at least.