Many airports have express lines for the security process. These lines are open to elite and/or frequent fliers. I rely on them to make my airport transits as short as possible. I have a few peeves about them. One being is there are not enough of them. Another is that when the “normal lines” are full, they redirect regular passengers to the express lines. I know I should not be selfish and share and slow down etc but it drives me crazy! At Sydney Airport, yesterday, this happened. Two young backpackers got moved into the…
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Search Results for "security".
Negotiating US Security- an appeal and a guide
I have just spent three weeks out of the last five in the USA flying 21 times. This is a lot of checkins! Flying can be very frustrating at the best of times but people’s dilly dallying at airport security really raises my impatience levels. If a passenger “wastes” a minute at security, that can be a be an annoyance. If 15 people in a security line all “waste” one minute, this time delay adds up. For some people, this can mean missing a flight! In the book and movie “Up in the Air”, the…
Security Thieving [Updated]
At Auckland International Airport two years ago, I encountered a petty official at the security check point with a petty attitude. I placed my computer on the conveyor belt and waited for it to go through. She insisted that I proceed through the X ray machine before my laptop did but I would not leave my computer unwatched. I see people throwing wallets, keys and watches into the open trays and then marching on through the metal detectors, leaving the stuff on then conveyor belt, ready to be pushed through – by anyone. I put those items…
Johannesburg: First encounter with the City of Gold
Firstly, three fascinating facts about Johannesburg for your next Trivia Pursuit Competition: I flew to Johannesburg expecting not to like it, but there is something about its youthfulness, energy, hustling, humour and beauty that got to me. I rate all the cities I have visited or lived in, and Johannesburg ranked 52nd among my 306 cities.1 I feel similarly about a diverse mix of cities, including Liverpool and Newcastle upon Tyne, Portland (Maine) and Santa Fe in the USA, Tangier in Morocco, and Yala in Thailand. Birth of the city To make sense of today’s…
Come on lets do better! Watching terrible passenger behaviour
Some things drive me quietly mad. In 2025, I’ve watched travellers with the fascination usually reserved for wildlife documentaries. This includes territorial battles, questionable public grooming and aggression. Travel is back in business, but it feels like basic manners clearly missed the memo. Passenger behaviour is objectively worse than pre‑pandemic, and slightly worse than 2022, but there is also more enforcement and more media shining a light on it. IATA’s own data shows that unruly incidents have jumped in a very short period, from about one incident every 835 flights in 2021 to roughly one…
“Where are you?” Ten Amazing and Two Terrible Travel Moments of 2025
Once the travel bug bites, there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life Michael Palin I know I have a reputation when people message me and ask not “how are you?” but “where are you?” This year’s answer included going to 27 countries around the globe: from Brazil and South Africa in the south, to Finland and Norway in the north, Japan in the east, and Colombia in the west. This wasn’t an easy year, but what a journey it has been. Ranked…
After 300 Airports, Here Are the Best and Worst
After many decades of flying, I’ve now passed through 300 airports. It’s a slightly ridiculous milestone, but it does give me a bit of authority when I say what makes a great airport and what makes a terrible one. There are seven things that win me over with airports: 1. Effortless passenger movement I have a visceral reaction to moving through Terminal 3 at Heathrow. Hell, for me, would be walking its long, narrow corridors, passing under its yellow signs and climbing the same stairs to security again and again. The whole terminal makes me…
What the new US entry rules really mean.
This week, media and travellers are reacting to a new US proposal that would greatly expand the data the US collects from applicants under the ESTA Visa waiver program. As a very frequent ESTA user since 2009, I will be impacted if they are approved. In this post, I delve into what it means for those of us who use visa‑waiver travel to go to the USA. It is important to note that at this stage, it is still only a draft, and nothing has changed for actual travel yet. When I first went to…
Tintin made me visit Geneva- Enjoying this Swiss Treasure
An introduction to Tintin and his Geneva When I was a child, I was obsessed with the adventures of Tintin, a fictional reporter from Belgium who traveled to almost every continent (we never saw him make it to Australia). On his travels usually accompanied by his dog Snowy, solving crimes, spy-rings and flying to the Moon. The series author Herge was fanatical about real historical detail (after his first three terrible books). In “The Calculus Affair,” Tintin dashes to Geneva to rescue his friend Proifessor Calculus who had traveled there for a science conference. In…
Surviving the Gunfire: How Tragedy Changed My Bangkok Life
Today’s post contains images and descriptions about extreme violence. Reader caution is advised Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, home to around 14 million people is known for its canals, food, parties, temples, culture, and massage. I know the city well. I have spent five years here over the last 12 years. I have many favourite spots. One of them is a fruit and produce market called OrTorkor, voted by CNN as one of the ten best markets in the world. The market is opposite our condo in Bangkok. It’s gate is a short walk from…
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