Indian airports

It's worth making some observations about travelling in India - in particular the airports.

Using kolkata as an example,  we tried checking in online but it would not let us so we couldn't print out anything.

So we arrive at the airport where you have to queue to enter the terminal,  and they request confirmation of your flight details and passport.

We only have one printed sheet which happens to have Heathers name on it,  so they will not let us into the terminal. So we have to reverse out of the queue and I leave Heather to wait.

It seems I have to find the airline desk which is much further along the terminal building,  so off I go,  and 10 minutes later I have a sheet of paper confirming I am a valid passenger.

So back in the queue again and this time we get into the terminal building.

We then queue for the desk only to find that we did not see the sign saying all baggage has to be pre screened,  so we reverse out of the queue (which we are getting quite good at) and find the pre screening area and queue again.

Our bags have now got a sticker on and we go back and queue again to check in.

Once we get the boarding passes now we have to queue for security.  The bags are put through and heather has to go through a separate security gate.

Once I go through the arch I then have to stand on a step whilst a security guard then wands me all over to check what I have in my pockets.  During this he is asking me questions about football.

Finally we emerge into the departure area - easy when you know how!

Finally as we get on the plane they check our tickets by scanning the bar codes but still 10 yards further on they are checked again by the Army, before finally they are checked one more time by the stewardess.

One more thing about flights in India is that they generally leave earlier than they should.  As an example our flight had a departure time of 10.50 but they started boarding at 09.50, and with everyone on board the doors were closed at 10.20 for departure,  that's 30 minutes before it was due! 

We have learnt our lesson and we always make sure we are at least an hour early to the gate. ....

Kolkata is a very modern airport that would put Manchester to shame,  one of the huge extremes in India where it is either new or old,  rich or poor,  with not very much in the middle.