Monday, April 04, 2005

Baggage Handling Hell

I originally wrote this post in long hand while sipping my mocha in that godforsaken airport in Minneapolis/St. Paul (Minneapolis and St. Paul are 'twin' cities - two nearby cities that grew so big they became one city). I meant to find an internet cafe to write this but there isn't one -there's wireless access though (talk about taking two steps forward, and one step back).

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My entry point into the United States was Minneapolis. The definition for entry point (this is my word for it anyway) is the place where you first enter into the country of the United States of America. Its the port of disembarkation, the point at which your plane touches down (or, in cases of sea voyages, ship reaches port). The entry point is the place where you go through the most irritating rite of customs any government authority can care to impose on you.

All right, there's the finger printing, entirely electronic without any ink-stained digits involved. There's the camera taking you picture (kawaii-deska!). And the guy with the probing questions about where you're going, why, what you're doing etc. Oh by the way, if you're a Singaporean visiting the US, fill in the GREEN visa waiver form! Don't take the white form (which looks suspiciously similar) cos that's for aliens! Not you! You're not an alien!

That's the easy part anyhow. The tough bit was when I had to collect my bag at the baggage claim area. Unfortunately for me, because of the debacle over the green form (remember, GREEN form), I was held far back in the queue. About 4 planes arrived around the same time I touched down, which meant a massive number of people crowding the customs clearance and baggage claim area.

The baggage claim area was where my troubles started. First of all, there were only two carousels. There were no signs to indicate which carousel carried bags out from which flight - according to the airport's baggage handlers, the bags came out of BOTH carousels, whichever plane you were taking.

I had difficulty spotting my bag - my bag was big, black, squarish and had no obvious marking. Basically this description fits most of the bags I see sprawled over the entire area and this brings me to my most serious problem - there were bags everywhere. Bags were still doing their merry-g0-round on the carousels (I had to look at both, did about 10 turns each). To add to the confusion, baggage handlers were taking bags OFF the carousels and laying them on the floor. I guess this was to ease the load on the carousels, but this DOES NOT help people like me.

Passengers had to search for bags on both carousels, search for bags sprawled on the floor and scramble to get out of the baggage handling area. Not good. I wished I had done the bright orange tag on my bag, or the funky pink ribbon in the corner thing. None of that, so my task was more arduous than most. Plus, given my semi-blind state (LASIK gave me problems with vision in low light conditions), I spent a frantic hour looking for my one big black bag.

Eventually, I gave up and approached this baggage handler (lets call him Papa Tango - he looks like a kind soul). I told him about my situation, and Papa Tango advised me to try again, or give up and file a baggage claim with the airline (NorthWest - worst ever, don't bother). So I gave the carousels one more pass and headed for the queues that will take me out to the next queueing area (I queued 3 times just to get into the airport proper, those customs b******s).

The guy at the end of the queue, a Homeland security officer greeted me (let's call him Father Abraham, 50s, white beard and hair, don't mess with me looks). He noted my 'no bag' condition, asked why I had no bag, and understanding the situation, marked some gibberish on my customs declaration form (make sure you get this one filled too!), asked me to go to the '2nd counter' with a dismissive wave in a generally 'there' direction. I didn't know where 'there' was, and decided to go check the baggage area ONE more time.

Oh Thank God my prayers were answered. I found my bag. Everything was intact (i.e. lock still there, bag still closed shut). Anyway, I dragged the bag and all over to the queue for Father Abraham to get through again. Got to the front and Father Abraham said didn't-I-tell-you-to-go-counter-two in that irritated tone old hassled men do. Well, I had to confess that I didn't know where he meant. Another dismissive wave, this time in a more descriptive manner at certain grey haired folks (pointed out by Father Abraham as 'grey haired folks', no less).

Okay, cleared grey haired folks and they told me to go back to Father Abraham's queue! Oh goodness gracious (actually, I muttered something along the lines of 'What the F***'). Finally, I cleared Father Abraham's station though I cheated - I picked the parallel queue serviced by Father Abraham's clone (same white hair but more cheerful). Goodbye to the customs folks!

Oh, that's not the end of it. I was greeted by another queue, this time for the actual X-ray scans and metal detectors. For most, this is the most difficult part for they have to remove items from their clothes, take off their shoes and wait in line for folks to clear the station. I found that to be easy compared to what I had to witness - to get our bags onto our connecting flights, the bags had to be checked into another 'baggage handling area', albeit one that looks more like those check-in counters in the airport.

The worst part was that the baggage handlers in this area told people who are queueing to 'just leave your bags here'. People were leaving their bags there, while folks further back in the queue were wondering why they were doing so. So the baggage handlers have to explain again when folks from behind come up... the cycle repeats itself.

In any case, I was pissed. Why make me go through the trouble of finding my bag, not bothering to even look into it (for bombs, incendiary devices, terrorist materials), and then making me just 'leave the bag here'? The whole exercise of looking for bag was pointless to begin with if all it ended up was back into another airplane. Customs rules HAVE to change - this is plainly ridiculous. A Californian native told me that Minneapolis airport is to blame - no other airport subjected people to this treatment.

So, left my bag there, with curses, and proceeded to do the X-ray and metal detector thing. With that cleared, I went on to run to catch my connecting flight (took almost 1.5 hrs to clear customs, 3 queues, and lots of frustration).

The connecting flight was cancelled - Oh Misery... what a card you dealt today.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds real bad. Should have just stayed in SG wth me...

Anonymous said...

A couple of the points that you present are not true. First, unless you are a US citizen you ARE an alien. Even if you're a permanent resident. Secondly, MOST Singaporeans need the green form. Visa waiver: green form, if you have a visa even if you're a visa waiver passport holder: white form. Thirdly, when you're coming out of customs to the x-ray machine, you're coming out of a "sterile" area. Sterile meaning that you haven't been mingling with domestic passengers and luggage. It's not a security risk to just leave your bag there. Fourth, I'm assuming that you flew directly from SIN to MSP. SIN is on the approved list from the State Department to fly directly into the US, unlike Baghdad and numerous countries in Africa, which basically means that they trust Singapore to do a good job of screening the flight for explosives. Fifth, if you had approached "Father Abraham" with your bag in the first place, you probably wouldn't have been sent to the counter. By going back and getting your bag you changed the equation. What do you expect when you can't take the time to find your bag?

Anonymous said...

Have a sense of humour you bastard. No one's seeking your dumb opinionated ass here.