Forgotten At Check In
My story is not so much about what is forgotten at check in but rather at checkout.
Rostered , early 1990's, to return a 737-200 back to the owner, a leasing company, from Hong Kong to Oklahoma City via the long way round. After 4 great days, 3 overnights we arrived at OKC Will Rodgers, having come from last stop Sept Iles, Quebec, 2 Aussie pilots and one Brit riding engineer, we were directed by ATC to the ILFC aprons and hangars for parking. We were then required to pack up all company documents on the aircraft for shipment back to HKG before leaving, including Jepp charts, pax briefing cards, QRH, checklists, tech log, etc etc. This took awhile and when completed handed these boxes to ILFC for shipment back to the company. We then piled into a Cadillac and driven off the airport through a back gate and to a nearby hotel.
Next morning we got a call from ILFC to say the US immigration were looking for us and we needed to appear pronto at their offices in downtown OKC. We had completely forgotten to clear Customs and immigration and now there was an APB out. Duly arriving at the very crowded immigration office we were told to take a number and wait to be called, several attempts were made to tell the lady at the enquiry desk about our case but she insisted we take a number and wait. 2 hours later we were called and it was a comedy scene. They were terrific about it and all had a good laugh.
I wouldn't want to do it in this day and age.
Rostered , early 1990's, to return a 737-200 back to the owner, a leasing company, from Hong Kong to Oklahoma City via the long way round. After 4 great days, 3 overnights we arrived at OKC Will Rodgers, having come from last stop Sept Iles, Quebec, 2 Aussie pilots and one Brit riding engineer, we were directed by ATC to the ILFC aprons and hangars for parking. We were then required to pack up all company documents on the aircraft for shipment back to HKG before leaving, including Jepp charts, pax briefing cards, QRH, checklists, tech log, etc etc. This took awhile and when completed handed these boxes to ILFC for shipment back to the company. We then piled into a Cadillac and driven off the airport through a back gate and to a nearby hotel.
Next morning we got a call from ILFC to say the US immigration were looking for us and we needed to appear pronto at their offices in downtown OKC. We had completely forgotten to clear Customs and immigration and now there was an APB out. Duly arriving at the very crowded immigration office we were told to take a number and wait to be called, several attempts were made to tell the lady at the enquiry desk about our case but she insisted we take a number and wait. 2 hours later we were called and it was a comedy scene. They were terrific about it and all had a good laugh.
I wouldn't want to do it in this day and age.
"BTW - PPRuNe's spell-check seems to be American? Prefers "realized" over "realised")."
It belongs to a US company who sell advertising - they have dozens of similar websites - hence the spell checker and the occasional strange change in the site ....... technically & financially its run by the company but day to day by the Mods (who I understand are unpaid volunteers) - who occasionally admit they have limited influence over the techies
It belongs to a US company who sell advertising - they have dozens of similar websites - hence the spell checker and the occasional strange change in the site ....... technically & financially its run by the company but day to day by the Mods (who I understand are unpaid volunteers) - who occasionally admit they have limited influence over the techies
"BTW - PPRuNe's spell-check seems to be American? Prefers "realized" over "realised")."
It belongs to a US company who sell advertising - they have dozens of similar websites - hence the spell checker and the occasional strange change in the site ....... technically & financially its run by the company but day to day by the Mods (who I understand are unpaid volunteers) - who occasionally admit they have limited influence over the techies
It belongs to a US company who sell advertising - they have dozens of similar websites - hence the spell checker and the occasional strange change in the site ....... technically & financially its run by the company but day to day by the Mods (who I understand are unpaid volunteers) - who occasionally admit they have limited influence over the techies
Please don't blame the techies - I am one. Usually it's management responsible for idiocy. Ever got annoyed with "enter bank number without spaces"? Any quarter-decent programmer knows it's one line of code to remove non-numeric characters from whatever is entered and without any loss of security. In other words if I enter my bank sort code as " (12+ 34=#56!)" it's equivalent to 123456 (or 12-34-56 if you prefer). But management somehow think that if it is more difficult for a human to enter correctly then it's more difficult for an automated script.
Son of Slot
Super Senior Moderator
Super Senior Moderator
Agreed! We could start a thread about modern websites and what they do/don't expect. All I'll say is, there used to be a well known airline that if you put in the three character IATA code of a place they served directly on their own metal - it said 'Huh?' You had to put in the whole name of the destination - correctly.
This wonderful PPRuNe website, internationally recognised as a collection of high level information and accurate comment, was founded by a British airline captain (who still visits these forums now and then) but it is now owned by an American company called IB Internet Brands. You can follow the links at the bottom of this page.
This wonderful PPRuNe website, internationally recognised as a collection of high level information and accurate comment, was founded by a British airline captain (who still visits these forums now and then) but it is now owned by an American company called IB Internet Brands. You can follow the links at the bottom of this page.
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Indeed - along with the customs road that begins around 100m into Swiss territory and has no exits between there and the airport. I haven't been through the 'French side' of Geneva but I believe the set-up is similar, with a road leaving the airport and joining the French network just beyond the customs checkpoint.
