Heavy Security on İstanbul flights

[beyazbayan]

Yesterday from Gatwick special teams were at the gate of the Turkish Air flights. One man and a dog, one grey suit and four heavy mob paying particular attention to young men. At İstanbul, Ataturk my hand luggage was opened when we arrived at Alanya we were taken to the no 1 terminal and several people had their luggage opened. The visa was still available for purchase at the visa control.

 

[Freedom 49]

Once you're on your way, you just want to get there, don't you?

I fully understand, and accept the security checks now being carried out but some of them are just too time consuming for regular travellers (non terrorist) like ourselves.

In recent years when travelling from Turkey to Nepal, my flight changes have been in Sharja, Dubai. What a performance! They seem to have a thing about shoes and have you take them off at every opportunity. They're scanned when you come off your incoming flight, again when you go through to the lounge by the gate for your outgoing flight and again at the gate before you go onto the plane. What a performance.

Thank heavens for Turkish airlines. They've introduced a flight from Istanbul, direct to Kathmandu and my ticket is booked for March. Hopefully, they'll allow me to keep my shoes on this time, no such checks on the Nepalese side.

I've often wondered how it is with Israeli flights these days.
Way back in 1970 when myself and a friend arrived in Haifa (by ship), we were virtually strip-searched in a curtained off cubicle before being allowed onto Israeli soil.
Having said that, we had a phenominal 12 months out there before going through the same procedure when we left to start and make our way back to Europe. That was 44 years ago. Are airline checks more strict than the ports?

 

[Hunt 23]

I friend of mine has just been to Cuba - took 8 hours to get out of the airport due to security checks.