The (almost) €429 tripod

Some interesting two days have just passed. I took the airplane from Mar del Plata to Buenos Aires on the 17th, slept one night in a hostel on a mattress that felt like stone, and went to the 'Circulo del Officieles de la Mar' (or some such, I don't know spanish) where I had to give a talk. The oral feedback I've gotten so far indicates that people did appreciate it, which is good.

I had originally planned to do some sightseeing in Buenos Aires after my talk, but me being tired and not immediately finding anyone else to go with me changed those plans. Instead, I just stayed at the C.O.M., where we played some Mao. Amongst other things.

About an hour before I left the place, Holger Levsen gave me a tripod, with the request to take it with me to Belgium, and keep it until FOSDEM. As that would also give me the use of an tripod, and being the photography hobbyist that I am, I was too happy to oblige. There was just one problem: the suitcase that contained my luggage already had a bulge from here to tokio, so adding it was a no-no.

No problem, I thought. I'll just keep it in my carry-on luggage. There's some space left there, and I certainly didn't have 5kg of carry-on luggage yet. Problem solved. The 'security' in EZE is a joke; the security officer doesn't even look at the screen while X-raying my luggage. Well done.

So I fly from EZE to MAD on the first, 11-and-a-half-hour leg of my flight. Madrid Barajas is a crazy airport, with its own private metro. Somewhere between gates R-something (where IB6844 from EZE arrived) and J40 (where the flight to BRU will depart from), we need to go through a security checkpoint. Strange, since I hadn't had to do that on my way in from BRU to EZE; but of course you have no choice, so I comply.

As I've gotten used to by now, what with the mess of cabling in my laptop bag and the other metal objects there, I get a baggage check. The security officer who goes through my very messy bag asks me to open the bag containing the tripod, so he can see it. He then promptly decides that it is a "sharp" object, and that it is "not acceptible". Here the fun begins.

Of course, trying to argue with a security guard isn't the best idea if you want to be allowed on any flight, ever, so I don't even try that. I ask him 'can I check that in, instead?' and he tells me how to go back, to the exit, and to the departures hall where I can have that little tripod get checked in. So I go there. The lady at the check-in desk tells me that she cannot check the tripod in, because the flight has already been closed and I'm too late. I tell her I'm from a connecting flight, and that I can't help that. She says she knows. So I ask her what my other options are. She tells me I could try to get on the next flight to Brussels, which is at 20:00 (rather than the 16:20 flight that I was booked on). I consider that an acceptable compromise, so ask her how to get that done, and she refers me to the ticket sales desk, some 10 meters to my left.

Unfortunately, the 20:00 flight turns out to be completely booked, and there are no other flights on the same day. The best alternative he can give me is a flight to Amsterdam at 19:20, which would cost 'a little more'. I ask him 'how much more'. He starts looking up things in his computer, and after a few minutes tells me that he cannot refund my ticket for the 16:20 flight and that a flight to amsterdam would cost me €429. At this point I get somewhat angry, and tell him that this is not acceptable. He refers me to the customer service desk right across.

The lady at the customer service desk is friendly, but firm: she cannot help me. Either I leave the tripod behind, or I pay whatever the ticket service asks me—she takes my word that it is €429, because she cannot check it, and cannot change it, either. I get more agitated, and ask to see the supervisor. She points me to a lady a little across who can 'call' the supervisor. At this point it is 15:55

As I reach that lady, apparently someone else had just asked for the same thing, and starts arguing with a guy in black uniform, who appears to be the supervisor, about the fact that he's got more than 30kg of luggage which he isn't allowed to take along with him. Dude, not a single airline will let you do that, no matter how much you argue. I let them argue for about 10 minutes, all the while nervously looking at my watch, but then I interrupt with 'please, I don't have much time left before my flight leaves'. That gets his attention. In our two-minute conversation, the guy in black backs up everything the other three people have told me, adding that '429 is reasonable; your luggage is already on the flight, and it will cost Iberia a lot of money to delay the flight and get it off'. I curse. He also seems surprised at the notion that I'm not allowed to take a tripod in my carry-on luggage.

Hmm.

Figuring I have nothing to loose, I curse one more time, and make a run for it. When I reach the security checkpoint, I ask to be allowed to skip the queue in front of it, on the grounds that I have only 15 minutes left before my flight leaves. Mind you, this is not the same security checkpoint as the one where I was rejected about an hour earlier; this is the security checkpoint between the departures hall and the secure area, whereas the other security checkpoint was one between two different terminals. I am granted my request, and quickly throw everything in the X-ray boxes. They need to go through my bag again. I help them, showing where everything conspicuous is, and opening my flute box so they know what's in there. He looks at everything, and signals that I can move on.

Hang on, I think. This can't be right.

'Okay,' I ask?

'Yes,' he says.

I run for the nearest info desk, show them my boarding pass, and tell them 'please, my flight leaves in 10 minutes, can you tell me where to go?' They are quick and efficient. Gate J40. I make a run for it again, and just make it in time. Of course, I could forget about my plans of finding a power outlet, plugging in my cell phone and calling my parents, but that's not a big deal—there's a train station at Brussels Airport.

So what have we learned? Security on airports is random, arbitrary, non-standardized, and utterly stupid. Items that pose no danger at all—plastic bottles containing more than 100ml of water, small quantities of yoghurt that are over 100grammes but not over 100ml, tripods—are not allowed, while on the other hand I've occasionally gotten through security carrying knives and tools that are clearly forbidden by the rules.

We've also learned that the rules very much depend on the particular person checking you. If you're refused for an item that is not a knife or a gun or something else similarly problematic, it may help to just find a different security checkpoint and try again. It's not as if they make any sense, anyway.