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Last night I dreamed that our family (with my father still alive and all of us much younger) went to Paris, France for a trip to France and Italy (totally atypical of us, as we traveled very little). Unfortunately, we put our passports in our checked luggage! I remembered soon after and asked an airport agent what to do. She said "xxxxxx, it'll be OK".
So, I woke up wondering, what would really happen in this situation? Has it happened to anybody here, or to people whom you know?
Last night I dreamed that our family (with my father still alive and all of us much younger) went to Paris, France for a trip to France and Italy (totally atypical of us, as we traveled very little). Unfortunately, we put our passports in our checked luggage! I remembered soon after and asked an airport agent what to do. She said "xxxxxx, it'll be OK".
So, I woke up wondering, what would really happen in this situation? Has it happened to anybody here, or to people whom you know?
A couple of answers.
Mostly the airlines check for a passport at the boarding gate. So you don't get on the plane without one.
In most arrival situations you meet your luggage before customs and immigration. So you would get your passports back before customs.
I have found over the years that the problems occur when leaving. Daughter flying to NY to meet Grandma and proceed to London leaves passport in car in Los Angeles. So we redeyed the passport cross country with 15 minutes to spare.
In many places you will find they easily admit tourists...in fact I have arrived in European airports where customs and immigration were closed so we all just walked on in.
And even if you end up in the system without your documents they normally work something out in a couple of hours. In fact probably the worst place to have a problem is returning to the US. We are not nice about such things...even to our own citizens.
It's almost impossible for such a thing to happen.
When flying you must go through ~passport control~ to get into the international boarding area. Your luggage would have been checked and tagged well previous to the passport control station.
When debarking from the flight you must go through passport control before you are allowed into other areas of the airport, including baggage pickup.
At an airport, if your passport was in your checked luggage you would not be going anywhere. When you get to the passport control booth you must produce your passport. No passport, no entry. That simple.
Boat/ferry/train/land crossings can be more varied. Airports are not.
It's almost impossible for such a thing to happen.
When flying you must go through ~passport control~ to get into the international boarding area. Your luggage would have been checked and tagged well previous to the passport control station.
When debarking from the flight you must go through passport control before you are allowed into other areas of the airport, including baggage pickup.
At an airport, if your passport was in your checked luggage you would not be going anywhere. When you get to the passport control booth you must produce your passport. No passport, no entry. That simple.
Boat/ferry/train/land crossings can be more varied. Airports are not.
You need to travel more. Airports are at least as varied as land stations. Just depends on where and when.
Passport control on many flights may occur at the airline check in stand. That includes US flights going to Mexico and Canada.
Last night I dreamed that our family (with my father still alive and all of us much younger) went to Paris, France for a trip to France and Italy (totally atypical of us, as we traveled very little). Unfortunately, we put our passports in our checked luggage! I remembered soon after and asked an airport agent what to do. She said "xxxxxx, it'll be OK".
So, I woke up wondering, what would really happen in this situation? Has it happened to anybody here, or to people whom you know?
When I read the title, I thought it was going to be someone asking if they should do this. Nooooo! I have never heard of anyone making that mistake.
Thanks for the advice. We're going to Ecuador for the month of November. Enjoy your turkey while we're gone.
I don't travel much anymore. Older and move slowly and **** off customs people.
And I was never in Ecuador...so I cannot speak to it. But I will freely guarantee that getting into Ecuador with problems is less than 10% of returning to the US with similar problems.
And over a 30 year, 6 million mile career I only once got into trouble in the airline passage.
And that was a Pan Am flight into Panama.
I immediately placed a curse upon them. And we all see how that worked out.
It's almost impossible for such a thing to happen.
When flying you must go through ~passport control~ to get into the international boarding area. Your luggage would have been checked and tagged well previous to the passport control station.
When debarking from the flight you must go through passport control before you are allowed into other areas of the airport, including baggage pickup.
At an airport, if your passport was in your checked luggage you would not be going anywhere. When you get to the passport control booth you must produce your passport. No passport, no entry. That simple.
Boat/ferry/train/land crossings can be more varied. Airports are not.
I agree that at airports when going on an international flight this can't happen as you need to show your passport at check-in (even it is a self check-in machine).
I once dropped my passport on an airport bus going from a terminal to the plane while overseas. I discovered my passport missing when I was taking my seat on the aircraft. I immediately told one of the flight attendants and my passport was recovered from the airport bus (where I thought it had to be). If it hadn't been found, I would have been in a tough situation as I was technically out of the country that I was leaving from (having gone through passport control), but didn't have a passport to enter the country that I would be flying to.
Visit dreams reader... lol
This dream probably has some meaning, but in reality you cannot fly anywhere without physically showing your passport several times on the airport, before boarding...
You'll need to show the passport to check the luggage and then again at the gate to board the plane.
That's the way it has worked in every single US airport I've ever flown an international flight from--which must be at least a dozen.
PS--It was that way even before September 11th, I remember having to show my passport to get on a flight back in 1989.
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I have never heard of anyone making that mistake.
We're going to Ecuador for the month of November. Enjoy your turkey while we're gone.
lol
