The Terminal -Arrested

Few weeks ago my colleague and I were routinely bringing clients to the airport. While we waited for the new ones to arrive, we sat at the airport cafeteria. I noticed an unusually large group of security officers enter the check-in hall. After a while we were asked to present our passports, which we have been told to carry with us at all times. However, they happened to be in Cairo for the work permit process. I produced a copy, but a security police wasn't content and stayed watching us not to escape.

I called our agent to explain the situation in Arabic. He came to help us, but we were escorted inside the airport with some others, who didn't have their passports. When we say good-byes to our clients, as they disappear to security check area, we always wonder what the airport looks like inside. Now we had a supreme change to witness it ourselves.

We stress to our clients every time that liquids are not allowed. Also exporting even smallest corals and sea shells is illegal against a big fine, and all will show in the x-ray. Thus a client had left some some coral and shells with my colleague. We also had our morning green tea bottles in our bags. Funny that we passed through the x-ray with all our corals, shells, and drinks, and none of the security officials said a word.

We were walked through check-in area to immigration office and pointed two metal benches where to sit down. A stern-looking, young security man stood watching us. After a while he got tired standing and told us to sit tighter, so he could have a seat with his colleague. I needed to go to bathroom, so one guard escorted me to the door.

In the meantime our agent was doing paperwork for us. After 90 minutes I asked how long does it take. ”5 minutes”. It turned out to be 5 Egyptian minutes, which was 90 minutes more. Our new clients had arrived on the other side, so we made some calls to have someone else deliver them to hotels. Our guards were drinking tea, but they refused to bring us anything. We were freezing in our airport skirts in the air-conditioned hall.

I visited bathroom again. Now the guards' interest on us had decreased to the point that I could sneak there myself. I took advantage of the privilege and wandered to check-in area to buy some tea. The precious cup cost 3 times more than normal, even with a discount!

After three hours we were finally released, when our Mr. Official Relationships entered the scene. The security wanted to x-ray our bags again – in reverse: We walked to departure hall through the metal detection gate with our bags, then gave them to be scanned through x-ray, towards the direction we had just walked, and then they returned our bags through the gate again. How handy! They still didn't discover the corals, shells, and more than 100 ml of liquid each... (We will not tell this to our clients...)