nakatago wrote:zzm9980 wrote:Mi Amigo wrote:
Wow, we were thinking of a holiday in India next year but maybe we'll go somewhere else that's easier to sort out visa-wise instead.
Everything in India is needlessly complicated, especially when it comes to travel. They have by far the most complicatedly stupid, inefficient, and useless security checks of any airports anywhere in the world, bar none.
Dammit; I thought the Philippines was number 1! No small, folding umbrellas in hand carry. Still need to take off shoes (even if you're just wearing flip-flops). Need to pay terminal fee and travel tax at airport. Filipinos working abroad need to go though POEA and OWWA first. Immigration and custom forms are separate but ask for practically the SAME information. Transferring between terminals can be a nightmare. Our main airport was voted worst in the world. Tourists to Singapore need to show a letter from the Philippine embassy in Singapore so that they can leave the country and enter Singapore who'll let them in with no hassle....flying: it's more fun in the Philippines.
EDIT: correction; they don't want umbrellas in hand-carry.
So that does sound like a pain, on par with India. Here is a summary of a recent domestic flight I took in Bangalore, one of the newer/more modern airports in India.
1) Arrive at the airport. Itinerary is on my phone.
2) Go to the check in counter to get the boarding pass. But wait! The check in counter is inside the terminal (obviously). But you're not allowed into the building without a boarding pass or printed itinerary. Really?
3) Since the airlines recognize this problem, they have pre-check in desks outside the terminal. Wait in queue for 30 minutes (that's only with 2-3 people ahead of you) and give them your passport and show them your itinerary on your phone. They then give you a cryptic print out allegedly showing your itinerary.
4) Go wait in a 10 minute queue to show this new cryptic form to the guard to get into the terminal. Of course, it's cryptic and he doesn't know how to decipher it either, despite the fact he probably sees dozens an hour. 2-3 minutes of him staring at it, my passport, and asking me questions in kannada or some other language I don't know how to even spell, he lets me in.
5) Now I wait in a 30 minute queue to check in and get my boarding pass.
6) Make sure you get little tags for all your carry-ons down here!)
7) Walk opposite way through throngs of people, and up an escalator to security.
8) Wait in queue for 15 minutes,
9) find out one of my two carry-ons doesn't have a *blank* tag on it. For some reason, they don't have more blank tags up here, so go back down and get another.
10) Repeat 7 and 8.
11) The hand baggage scanning is backed up, so stand there and hold your bags since there is no place to put your bags down onto the belt. This belt is backed up because the NEXT queue, for the body scan, is also backed up, because people are trying to walk through with their carry-ons (because they don't want to wait in this queue). Security simply lets the bags queue up on the end of the belt and completely overflow through the machine while waiting for the owner to finish his body scan.
12) Note that people who tried to go through the metal detector in previous step with carry-ons now cut into the hand bag queue, push waiting bags OFF the belt, ot try and force their bags right into the scanner, and then cut back into the metal detector queue.
13) 45 minutes later, get through all of this. Make sure your little blank tags on carry-ons were stamped, otherwise you need to go back through most of this because security won't believe you that they forgot to stamp it. (This didn't happen to me, but to someone with me)
14) Go wait by the gate.
15) Boarding is called for in an orderly fashion.
16) mobs of people crush the gate.
17) Your passport, boarding pass, and stamps on your carry-ons are rechecked by the gate agent.
18) Halfway down the walk-way, a table is setup and all carry-ons are re-opened and re-searched, and little tags re-stamped.
19) Finally board the plane. If you're flying Indigo, enjoy cute flight attendants.
Step 18 Note - I was told by a local this only happens during security lock downs, due to threats, protests or strikes. Note that almost every time I've been to India and flying domestically, there have been threats, strikes, or protests because this happens. (I go about once a year for 2-4 weeks, and fly at least half a dozen times domestically during these trips)
In my last trip to China, I had to put in ridiculous effort to fill out the forms and among the nonsensical details they wanted to know:
