I have been reading several hilarious incidents at the airport by Mac and one by 3inOne. Well I too have a tale - one that happened on my visit to Germany a few years back.
I was working for a fully German owned firm and I had to be onsite for a couple of months as part of the job.
This incident happened on my return trip back to India.
My German boss had an intuitive dislike for Indian office products and he wanted his newly started office at Kochi to have the latest German stuff, right to a German-make stapler.
The night before I was supposed to leave Germany, I was awake late. After I had cooked supper, washed the dishes, had a bath and did a hectic quick luggage packing before I fell into bed like a log after putting the alarm for an early morning rise.
Next morning I overslept and when I woke I found I was just in time to board my commute to the railway station from where I would proceed onwards to Frankfurt to board my flight to India.
My boss had earlier mentioned to me that he wanted to add some stuff for his office in my luggage.
My check-in baggage was already fully packed, so there was only some space in my carry-on baggage where he could put stuff in. I didn't have a chance to notice what all he stuffed into the remaining space as I was busy with my last minute travel check list. I knew he was putting a dismantled CPU of a computer, because he had mentioned that earlier. All this he was packing into my carry-on baggage which I was supposed to carry onto the aircraft, the check-in baggage having to go into the freight section, to which I would have no access during my journey.
I arrived at Frankfurt airport in good time ( The train terminates just below the airport complex).
At the airport I had my luggage checked in and awaited the frisk of my carry-on baggage by the airport security. The guy who checked my luggage was a tall slim blond haired guy - a stereotype German.
As he passed my rucksack through the X ray machine, I thought I was finally done.
But staring at the screen he called me aside, and conspirationally asked me whether I had a pair of scissors in my luggage. I said I had: a small pair of surgical scissors that I used to trim my moustace. But he said it was something big, gesturing with his hand- did I have anything like that? I was nonplussed. Then he showed me an image of a huge pair of scissors that was silhouetted in blue on the X ray screen. He handed my rucksack over and asked me to open it. Nervously I opened it and put my hands into only to come up with a huge pair of scissors.
It came to me in a flash. This was one of the German stuff my boss wanted for his German office. There was sticking tape, a stapler and some other office riff-raff. But the scissors posed the immediate threat and I would be hard put to explain its presence. And the times were not too auspicious for this to happen too, it was not long before that 9/11 had happened and the security was as tight as ever at most of the airports I had passed through, particularly Qatar airport, on my transit.
Breaking my reverie, the security guy asked me if I would be returning to Germany again. I said no, which was the truth. But he seemed unhappy with the answer and repeated the question. Putting two and two together I got the point he was trying to make. "Yes", I said. "I will be returning soon. Or someone else from my company will for sure", which was not untrue.
Satisfied with my answer, the security person took the offending object wrapped it in a brown envelope noted my name on it and placed it on a rack. He then handed me a receipt and told me I could collect the item on my return back to Germany, but it was surely not allowed on the aircraft. That was indeed very diplomatic of the security officer. Thanking my stars for this not too sad ending, I boarded the plane with a light heart. A mallu hijack indeed!
You can read more of my German adventures here.
5 months ago
