Brisbane Airport, Brisbane:
Check-in:
We arrived at Brisbane International Airport two and a bit hours before take off and checked in. I was very glad that we checked in when we did as 15 minutes later the line had grown by about 150%!
Checking in took forever, doesn’t it occur to the airline to put more people on Saturday morning when it’s busier? Or is it our fault for flying on a Saturday?
Standing in-line I noticed that the check-in operators seemed to be very strict about the weight of the carry on luggage (5kg). Gulp, we were both packing about 10kg (each). I didn’t really want to have to pay an excess carry on charge (discussed it with Kiyomi: should we give our carry on bags to my parents before checking in? Or just accept charges/penalties and be done with it.
While weighing up these earth shattering decisions, I saw one check-in operator tell a passenger that he couldn’t take power tools onboard in his carry on luggage and he would have to “wrap them up in his sheets” and put them in his suitcase. (Proceeded to cross my fingers and pray that we didn’t get her)
My fears were unfounded though, we made it through.
Customs:
After scanning our carry-on luggage we were told to remove our laptops from their cases and put them through again. If they told us this originally, it would have saved us all some time. (C’mon guys, I’m not a mind reader here)
Laptops through the second time without any hiccups. However customs wanted to have a look at a “suspicious” object in the bottom of my backpack. Oh crap! Thoughts running through my head: Ipackedmybagsmyselfdidn’tI? DidIleavethemunattendedatanytime? Whatcoulditbe?
Upon opening my backpack I saw it was my small tripod. Customs happy, I was relieved and proceeded to the aeroplane.
