The 'Mystery' of Travelling to/from USA by Air

Rulers of Everyhting

Travelling to and from the USA has been quite an experience. After years not having visited the USA, several weeks ago I decided to pay Florida a short visit and bought myself a roundtrip ticket; Quick and easy as one can expect.

Last week the time had come to board the plane to Boston with final destination Orlando. Arriving at Schiphol/Amsterdam airport, it was easy to get my boarding pass, but the show started the moment I arrived at hand luggage checkpoint. Unusual strong checkup was enforced including getting all electronics out of the bags including all cables, essentially everything that was metal needed to be unpacked and shown to the officials. I'm ok with that, when it serves a purpose, when it is something that is done everywhere. But it turned out not being the case as I will explain later in this post.

The show continued when I arrived at the boarding gate. It turned out the announced boarding gate was not a boarding gate but a special setup anybody who wishes to board a flight to the USA has to go through. After showing my boarding pass to an agent at one of the counters, I got millions of question: what I'm gonna do in Orlando, why I did not travel with the same flight as my girlfriend, why I decided to go to Orlando, who booked my ticket, why I decided to fly with Delta, why I decided to stay at the airport in a hotel, why with and what, this and that and blah blah blah. At least 15 minutes it took, and it turned out I got the short version. I felt being at some court or police station and getting a 3rd degree.

Finally, when the agent was satisfied and told me I passed the station and was good to go to the real boarding gate, I asked him "Why all these questions?". His answer was plain and simple: "Everybody flying to the USA need to go through this to make sure the person is eligible to enter the USA and does not have any wrong doing in mind". Not that bad to be honest to check this before you actual travel to the other side of the world.

On my transit in Boston, everything went very smooth. Entering the USA did require a custom passage, but nothing more than taking my finger prints and verifying these with those recorded on the chip of my passport. No questions, nothing at all, just two minutes waiting and I got my stamp. Getting to the gate for my next flight to my final destination, I had to go through another hand luggage checkup, all went smooth. The usual stuff was required, unpack laptop and liquids, and that was it.

Yesterday when starting my travel from Orlando back to my little home country The Netherlands, I got one surprise after the other. Checkin and collecting boarding passes was easy. Arriving at the hand luggage checkup, I was very surprised I didn't had to unpack anything, I could leave all the electronics and liquids in the bags, and could keep my shoes on as well. Nothing in my bags triggered the officials to check my bags manually, while several packaged items triggers the officials in The Netherlands for a manual inspection. I thought: "It is a USA internal flight, that should be the reason for the casual checkup". But then, I was in for the biggest surprise in my life of frequent traveller when I transit at Atlanta airport from my flight from Orlando to my next flight to Amsterdam. I could walk straight from my gate I arrived at to the gate I was scheduled to board the international flight to The Netherlands. No Customs. No passport checkup. No hand luggage checkup. REALLY?

Did the USA allow me to travel across the ocean without a passport check and a proper check of my hand luggage? Did they allow me to travel to Europe without feeling the need to ask me some questions? I could have had all sort of stuff in my hand luggage that I could turn into some kind of bomb. But nothing, absolutely nothing was checked on my way out of the USA, while all of this stuff is so heavily checked when I try to board a plain flying to the USA.

This adventure got me thinking, with this first hand experience I really wonder about the USA government. Are they for real? For sure they do not have a right state of mind! That is for sure a conclusion I can draw for myself. In many aspects I see the USA as an arrogant nation, a nation that thinks it rules the world, but I was not expecting it becomes so one sided as I experienced with my recent air travels. I'm somehow disgusted about all of this.

sources [1][2]

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