Airports & Kelli: A Love-Hate Relationship

After being back in Algeria for 5 days I decided it was time to get out again. This time for just a short jaunt to the UK. Flight schedules being what they are, I had to settle for the Air France trip involving a layover in Paris, instead of the British Airways straight shot. This also meant getting up at 4am to make the 7am flight. BUT, I’m going to London, so I’ll live.

I’m not sure that the Algiers airport and I are going to be the best of friends. Especially at 5am. I think I’ve heard somewhere that it is one of the most secure airports in the world, which is great. However, it’s possible they go just a tad overboard. Here’s how it all goes down. As you enter the airport, your bags are scanned, as are you, plus you get a full pat down. Then you go check in and get your boarding pass from one guy, then go 3 desks down to another guy so he can stamp your boarding pass. Then you are allowed to proceed to passport control. But before you get to passport control, a security guy checks your ticket and passport. Then you go to actual passport control, where they stamp your passport. Then you go through another scanner checkpoint (within view of passport control), where they check your passport AGAIN before you scan your bags and walk through the scanner. Then, just when you think you’re free and clear, you encounter ANOTHER checkpoint, where they may or may not check your passport. I’m not sure what determines whether they do this or not. Then you’re good to go until boarding. At that point, one guy scans your ticket and checks your passport, then you go a few feet past him where they check your ticket and passport AGAIN and let you onto what I’ll call the “pre-gangway” – a gangway-like tunnel thing where you wait to have your bags searched again and be patted down again. Only then are you allowed to actually board the plane. Now, granted, I’m not a security expert, but it seems like maybe one or two of those steps could be eliminated in order to streamline the process. But that’s just me and I do appreciate feeling secure while traveling.

The other issue that made me less than thrilled at 5am was that somehow I managed to book myself an international ticket that did not include a checked bag! ARGH. Now, I know I’m only going for 4 days, but I plan on buying stuff, so I brought a checked bag, only to have the guy at the Air France desk tell me I would have to pay. Obviously the only option was to cough it up, which I did, although not before I did a bit of arguing, after which I was told it was a “new rule” on Air France, and I really shouldn’t book through Expedia anyway. Airlines are ridiculous. The silver lining in all of this is I had the entire baggage argument in French with very little difficulty. Turns out being pissed off is very similar to being drunk in terms of my ability to just let the French flow. 🙂

At any rate, in retrospect, my morning at the airport could have been much worse. I was on the same plane as some very friendly Americans who had been in Algiers working with the Embassy, so we grabbed a couple of espressos and chatted while waiting to board, which happened on time. And as I write this, I am sitting in the airport in Paris, having had a fabulous slice of quiche and a couple of mini macarons, about to board a plane to London. All in all, I’m pretty much willing to put up with whatever hyper-security and airline ridiculousness I have to in order to make this kind of trip happen!