Tale of very many European style Rambos
What you need to know:
Airport traffic. We were asked to arrive four hours before our flight. This is why.
Travelling through the airport of Charleroi in Belgium, a few days after the attacks on the international airport of Brussels, might not have been the best of ideas. However, planning to attend a family wedding in Greece and choosing to travel with a budget airline Rayyan Air, there was no other option.
Following instructions
We were informed that we should arrive at least four hours before departure, and once we arrived at the airport, it became clear why. Tanks, military presence, anti-riot vans, police, army men and women, dogs, name it, they were all at the very small airport. The first queue started at the parking lot where we took the bus to the airport, no personal cars were allowed to drop off passengers at the airport.
Military in action
As the bus reached the airport vicinity, we were stopped by the military police, Rambo style army men came on board checking everyone’s ID card or passport, a dog too came along sniffing his way through the bus. The army men were mostly masked, showing only their blue or green eyes. This did not go unnoticed by the woman who was sitting behind me, who kept commenting on every single happening on the bus. She told her companion to notice how handsome those men in uniform were.
And children?
In the same breath, the woman complained that the heavy and huge machine guns they were carrying were traumatising the children on board. She further suggested that a proper clarification should be given to the children explaining to them what was going on. I’m guessing this woman is not up to date with the latest video games such as call of duty that children and the younger generation play daily, online chatting, shooting and killing virtual enemies even in other parts of the world, the same children she is worried about, can give her a lesson or two about trauma!
Queue at the airport
Reaching the airport, a long second queue, just to enter the terminal was formed, this time, all passports and boarding passes were checked by a police officer and a few selected passengers were thoroughly searched.
After the procedures of checking in and dropping off the luggage, we joined a third, much longer queue, to be searched before entering the main departure lounge.
It seemed the gruelling long waits were almost over and we headed towards the plane to finally take off. Alas, this was not the case, another 20 minutes of wait near the runway, this time purely because of bad logistics of Rayyan Air! Once on board, the fact that one had to purchase even the water to be consumed after such an exhausting day, did not help the matters.
Any complaints?
God willing, this would be our last flight with this airline, but who am I to talk? I was reliably informed that it is one of the fastest growing budget airlines in the world, who knows, maybe we will have no options to choose from in the next few years.
