The Lincolnshire Bird Club

It's been suggested that I share this with members, in order to avoid similar unpleasantness.

It's a long story, but essentially I had taken the tripod in my hand luggage as the bag was overweight with it. This was OK flying out from Stansted but the security officer at Zaragoza claimed it was dangerous. My Spanish was not really up to the task of explaining it all - and he'd been drinking and we were running late. It was old, second-hand and it didn't seem worth the aggro. I gave it to him as a present, at which point he became very aggressive. At one stage I thought we were going to miss the flight.

This may be tempting fate, but it strikes me as odd that I've never had any problem with the 'scope in the hand luggage - surely it could be used as a weapon?

Perhaps we could have a thread with other airports being named and shamed?

Rob

Had a similar experience on returning from a birding/walking trip to the Picos de Europa (highly recommended!). A telescopic walking stick owned by my companion was allowed out from Stansted inside hand-luggage but was not permitted on the return from Oviedo. When it was explained that this was allowed on the outbound flight the Garda called us liars and threatened to arrest us! He is now the proud owner of a very old and battered Leki but not where we wanted to put it!

David

Moral of the story is put it in your suitcase. Never any bother that way
My scope once raised some eyebrows when I was leaving Antigua. That was in my hand luggage