Your worst flight/airport experience

[CigaalSHiiDaaDCFC]

When I missed my flight and got stranded at heathrow airport for 30 hours one of my worst days

[mahoka]

Daalo flight from djbooty to hargeisa, I thought it was the end

[MujahidAishah]

Air Djibouti 2006 Djibouti to borama which was hell especially when. I saw it was an old Russian military plane with the drop down doors on at the back.. ciyaar waa gelin dhambe the return leg from borame to hargeysa via car then hargeysa to Djibouti by plane walahi I thought I was going to die I had foostooin all around me I have never been so happy to see ambouli airport

[Tuushi]

I flew through schiphol airport 3 days after a suicide bombing attack.The worst airport experience of my life.

Thinking of this,i have tendency of walking into huge events like this.Last year,Paris 2/3 days after the massive killings etc.

[AwRastaale]

Daallo from Djibouti.

[gurey25]

wierdest experience was an hour long interrogation at heathrow.
first guy was rude so i was pissed off and started to insult himand get aggressive when he wouldnt tell me what the problem was.
Then they got me some big shot intelligence guys who looked like they had brains, i started cooperating when started to be polite.
turns out it was a 1 in a million coincidence.
I usually book my flights just a day or 2 before and the seat i got belonged to a guy who cancelled his flight last minute, just as it online hours later.
This guy had the same first name and last name, with the same spelling, was not somali but from mali.
he also has the same age, same birth month, just the day was different.
computer must have flagged it..
we laughed it off afterwards, they told me not to be so aggressive next time,
and i told them i am always chilled , never aggressive but i cannot stand rudeness, and i made an official complaint to the staff.

[Tiburon]

Guarulhos Airport San Paulo Brazil after 15 plus hours direct flight from DXB. Late evening arrival and stupid Copa Airlines(Continental) connecting was 8hrs away to Panama City. Mediocre night crew who barely spoke English in the whole airport. Further harassed by Copa Airlines ground crew after realizing I came from Middle East and demanded vaccination card. All in all a complete tiresome and utter disaster. I hope Emirates doesn't follow through with their idea of a direct long haul to Panama City which would be their longest, I believe 19-20hrs. Could be profitable at the same time but not my cup of tea. Man I truly miss Panama City and Quito.

[Twist]

Has anyone of you ever stayed inside three different airports for one full week? I have, and it's something I will never forget.

It was in January 2002, the first time I flew out of Somalia (and the last, since I didn't return yet). I was with a group of other Somalis as university students who got scholarship from the then Somali embassy in Iraq, back when A/Qasim Salat was elected president from that Djibouti reconciliation conference. A guy he appointed as the new Somali ambassador to Iraq (the embassy was still open, and the ex ambassador was still there. It was a big mess, but won't get into that now) got thirty scholarships from the Iraqi government, and since Bush was already making threats to attack Iraq since 9/11, not many people wanted to go to Iraq. I persuaded my brother to get me a ticket and send me there, since I wasn't doing anything at the time. He talked to the mukhalas guy in Xamar, and that's when they messed up things that will get us stuck in three different Middle Eastern airports for seven nights.

We flew out of Mogadishu on the 2d of January, 2002, on a Jubba Airways, and were given a scholarship letter from the Iraqi government. We were told that our route will be Mogadishu>Dubai>Doha>Damascus and then someone will bring us a bus and pick us up from the aiport to Baghdad, so we didn't need visas. Big mistake! We stayed in Dubai International airport for three days and flew to Doha on the third day, and on the same day we switched to another flight to Damascus. When we got there, we were asked where we were headed and how come we didn't have visas. We told them we were uni student and were on our way to Iraq. They told us we can't get into the country without visas whether we were students or not. They took us into a holding room in the airport, and in the evening a guy from the Somali embassy in Damascus visited us. He openly told us if we pay the ambassador he could issue us visas. Since most of us had like $100 each, and couldn't afford to give that up since we didn't know what was awaiting us ahead, we said we didn't have the money. We stayed in Damascus airport that night. They put us on a Qatari airways (it took us from Dubai airport) on the next day in the afternoon and handed our passports to the crew (they didn't give us our passports since we landed there). We reached Doha in the evening and had to stay in the airport for a night (that's the fifth night staying in airports). We were booked on a return flight to Dubai the next day, and when we got there the Dubai airport officials asked us why were returned. We told them we were uni students going to Iraq and we were told we didn't need visas to go to Iraq via Syria on land, and that's why we were returned. Since Jubba Airways brought us from Somalia, they were told to get us out of there and foot the bill. We bloody came too close to be sent back to Xamar, but the ticket cost was too high for them to pay out of their pockets (there were some Somalis returning from the diaspora at the time when A/Qasim was elected), so they actually bought us a $50 pp tickets to Basra, Iraq. We had to stay in Dubai IA for two more nights, and sailed out of there on the evening of Thursday, the 10th of January. We stayed five nights in Dubai International Airports altogether, and one night each in Doha & Damascus airports. Seven nights of sleeping on airport chairs for a group of mar-dhoof Maryooleys. Shit will be in my memory bank for many years to come.

[Tiburon]

Damn that's a rough one Twist. Now if you don't mind sharing how did you tail it out of war zone Iraq after Saddam bust. Its so sad so.many youngsters have seen ibtilo to reach the west be it the newest titanic crew, South Africa Brazil way, the damned Turks in Greece or even from fellow Somali mukhalas with a criminal basterdized heart.

[FAH1223]

Thankfully all my experiences flying have been good. No random searches and no interrogations.

[Twist]

Damn that's a rough one Twist. Now if you don't mind sharing how did you tail it out of war zone Iraq after Saddam bust. Its so sad so.many youngsters have seen ibtilo to reach the west be it the newest titanic crew, South Africa Brazil way, the damned Turks in Greece or even from fellow Somali mukhalas with a criminal basterdized heart.

Yeah, it was an unforgettable journey, and escaping from Iraq in the first day of the war and registering as a refugee with the UNHCR in Jordan was another interesting and unforgettable journey as well. But in the end, though many poor, innocent Iraqis either lost their lives, limps or their loved ones, that war actually gave me the opportunity to come to the West. We were over 100 Somalis who applied for refugee status from the UNHCR in Jordan after we fled Iraq, and said we couldn't go back to Somali because of the civil-war and unrest. Unfortunately half us were rejected after two interviews, and the rest of us who were accepted, some of us went to the US, and the rest, including myself, came to Australia. So yeah, it was a blessing for us, but my heart goes out to the countless Iraqis who lost everything, including their country, to that bloody invasion.

[FarhanYare]

^
The Arabs have a bad record of treating Somalis in their home-turf; So were you lot received warmly in Iraq generally speaking, not just the airport officials, but the public themselves?

I would imagine you wouldn't be able to answer this assuming the difficulty circumstances of the Iraq war had on you lot (i.e.. Constantly hiding)

[Twist]

Farhan, we really didn't have any issues in Iraq at all when Saddam was in power, since Somalia is a member of the useless Arab League, and he was welcoming to people from all Arab countries. That was actually the main reason most of us were nervous and left the country as soon as the war started. We had this fear that when the war starts and Saddam is overthrown, we will get stuck in the country and the Shi'ites would target all the Arab students, as well as the Sunni Iraqis.

There was actually a small number of Somalis who remained in Iraq for a couple more months when the government fell (and some of those rejected by the UNHCR later chose to return to Iraq instead of Somalia), and nothing happened to them, though later on one of guys who returned to Iraq was killed by an Iraqi militia (they abducted him from the Somali embassy where he was staying, and sent a video disc to the remaining staff and students in the embassy demanding ransom. We were told they murdered him later on, since no one could give them the ransom money).