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hissing sid View Drop Down
Chalfont Oldie
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hissing sid Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 September 2011 at 9:52am
Did you ever fly into the old HongKong airport?
As for the USA. I drive back and forth over the Canda US border weekly with no problems.
Hissing Sid

It's a free country, adopt whatever PC stance you want. Just don't tell me which stance I should take just because it clashes with your opinion.

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Bucks Fizz View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bucks Fizz Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 September 2011 at 11:05am
The scariest I've done is Madeira (Funchal airport). The runway is on a shelf, cantilevered out from the side of this Cottage loaf-shaped island. Pilots have to get the angle of approach just right and many overshoot. Then again, dropping into London City airport one is a bit heart in mouth too.
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Dave-R View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dave-R Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 September 2011 at 12:43pm
Yeh i ve been to Madiera! The runways on stilts!
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Eaton View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Eaton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 September 2011 at 3:22pm
I've always hated landing at Gibraltar!
 
Having said that I've always hated flying and after a brake failure at Alicante about 15 years ago I wouldn't fly for about 6 years and despite having hynotherapy I still wasn't overly happy.  Now I take valium and wine when I fly and sleep most of the flight.


Edited by Eaton - 03 September 2011 at 3:25pm
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born and bred View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote born and bred Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 September 2011 at 4:35pm
[QUOTE=hissing sid]Did you ever fly into the old HongKong airport?
As for the USA. I drive back and forth over the Canda US border weekly with no problems.
  The old Hong Kong airport was scary. You could see what they were   eating on their dinner plate.
local born and bred
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big baggles View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote big baggles Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 September 2011 at 5:45pm
i have flown in and out of alicante regually too, - sounds like you had a bad experience eaton...no wonderi t put you off !
 
copenhagen is an interesting approach too....
need a stella and i need one now !
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Eaton View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Eaton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 September 2011 at 7:40pm
It became very obvious there was something badly wrong when we heard 'brace brace brace' as we started skidding slightly sideways, if that makes sense!
 
It wasn't helped by the look of abject terror on the face of the very young flight attendant and even when we did safely stop, while still on the runway, the fact that the whole plane could hear her vomiting in the galley!
 
I managed to fly back to the UK the next week but didn't get on a plane again for quite a while...
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big baggles View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote big baggles Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 September 2011 at 6:14pm
enough said..............
need a stella and i need one now !
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Bucks Fizz View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bucks Fizz Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 September 2011 at 12:04am
Okay everyone, we arrived in Dan Diego on Weds evening around 7pm their time and were the only flight in the arrivals hall. Around 100 of us stood in 6 lines in front of 6 desks looking at 12 immigration officers who studiously ignored us for around 30 minutes. Mothers with crying babies left the queues and went and sat on the floors. There was no air conditioning operating in the arrivals hall (yet it was functioning very well elsewhere in the airport). No reasons were given for the fact that no-one opened up the controls. Then eventually the processing began. I timed the passenger processing and it took on average 10 minutes to clear each person - mainly Brits with visa waivers/Estas. This contrasts p*ss poorly with the 15 seconds it takes a UK immigration officer to clear the average US citizen at Heathrow.

The computers were apparently working Ok though the fact that all the passengers were drenched in sweat meant their fingers fogged up the fingerprinting screens, which packed up and eventually the officers realised they needed to clean the screens after each passenger to erase the skin acids.

Many of the officers appeared to have not a clue what they were doing and they had to frequently ask their colleague in the next kiosk which buttons to press on their computers. Given their ages however, it was hard to believe they were trainees. There were no other flights in the hall ahead of us and no others arrived whilst we were being processed (TG) so the fact that it took an hour and a half for 12 officers to land 50 passengers (we were midway in the queue) is inexplicable. It could only be due to either extreme incompetence or a deliberate attempt to humiliate and subjugate their only allies in the world. Being mostly British of course, nobody complained. Or perhaps this was because we had all read the awful press reports of what US Homeland Security did to the elderly British cruise tourists who were left for half a day in the heat of the sun on a quayside in Florida with many of them collapsing and others being told to urinate over the dockside if they couldn't wait. Their crime? They'd dared to ask why they had been forced to wait 4 hours for the immigration computers to be switched on. As a reprisal for their rudeness, they were made to wait another 4 hours before clearance started.

All things considered, this was my first, and will be my last, arrival at San Diego airport. San Francisco will have my business in future. Immigration staff in Kenya and Pakistan could, in my experience, run rings around their San Diego counterparts. And I always thought performance standards was an American phrase!   
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Dave-R View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dave-R Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 September 2011 at 12:28pm
Australia on the other hand are great! I recently visited and it was quick and the immigration staff were human, having a laugh with everyone etc. Im quite a big guy and they were telling me not to eat too many of their kangaroos, etc etc. Unlike the robot like Yanks.
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