Tag: airport

Layover/Transit in Japan Narita Airport during Covid-19

I will be going to Mongolia from China on a chartered flight from Tokyo to Ulaanbaatar. I have two options,

  1. Depart from China and arrive in Tokyo a day before my scheduled chartered flight. In this case, would I need a visa to stay at the airport while i wait for my flight the next day?
  2. Depart from China and arrive in Tokyo on the same day as my scheduled chartered flight. The chartered flight is at 15:30 but i will arrive in Tokyo at 13:50. Would i have enough time to transfer to the chartered flight?

Very urgent, anyone has any info, please reply! TIA! <3

covid 19 – I have a transit that will pass by CGK airport on 25 Jan 2020

I am traveling from Cairo, Egypt to Sydney, Australia and I have a layover of 4 hours at CGK airport on 25 Jan 2020.

Ideally this shouldn’t be a problem, however Garuda Indonesia is stating on its website that transit is not permitted for foreigners from 15-25 Jan 2020 due to COVID-19.

My question is does this affect my flight or connections are not affected.

If it’s affected why does Turkish airlines sell this ticket in the first place without a warning.

wifi – 5th Gen Airport Extreme Randomly drops connection – but only on some devices

Here’s the situation: I am using a brand new MacBook Pro, and thus far all seems well.

I have a 5th Gen Airport Extreme that has worked well for nearly a decade. (I hadn’t realized it was so long, but there you are).

So lately what’s been happening is my wife’s devices seem to randomly lose connections. She has to have our internet connection function, so clearly this is a REAL problem. She is using a ThinkPad / Windows machine and connecting to a work VPN.

The other device she has is a late model iPad mini, which recently lost a zoom meeting.

I have had no problems with the Internet but she seems to run into a problem about once a month, where she gets randomly kicked off the network and it takes a minute for everything to find it again.
Anyhow, I had a few ideas as to what is wrong, but I need some help even figuring out how to diagnose this. Our ISP is Spectrum, and they said all is well with the modem (an Arris DG167OA I think, that is directly connected to the Airport Extreme)

My ideas:

  1. Distance. The problem is just that she is in the kitchen about 20 feet from the router, through a couple of walls. The thing is, I have worked out there too (on the terrace) and never had a problem yet.

  2. Some weird compatibility issue since the problems seem to come up most often with the Windows machine and recently I was able to get her on the Internet using a local hotspot from my phone (which was set to Wifi)

  3. Something I haven’t thought of, related to the age of the router.

What I have done: firmware is version 7.8.1, and I am not getting the “update” notice.
Haven’t tried hard reset yet, since we need Internet to work (so I likely need to do it at night or something)

I have an airport express I bought also some years ago (it was originally hooked up to the stereo to play music) and maybe that could help extend the network if that’s the problem, but do let me know.
Any ideas welcome . Thanks!

Also: if anyone has suggestions for an Apple Router to buy please tell me; the only ones I saw were $500 and that seems crazy compared to what I spent years back. I need a solution that “just works” — I am not interested in playing Tech Support Guy as I have a job too, you know?

usa – What can I wear to avoid getting frisked and crotch searched by TSA at the airport?

As others have noted, metal will often get you flagged. For this reason, if you need to wear pants with some type of suspension, you should definitely opt for something like sweat pants with a cloth drawstring. Of course, there are many belts which have no metal parts, but if your pants have a zipper or button or any metal fasteners, then having a non-metal belt will likely be insufficient to avoid a pat-down. I have a pair of outdoor hiking pants with removable lower legs and a nylon belt with a plastic buckle. All the zippers are very small/lightweight; but because it has zippers near the knee (which I’m sure shows up as anomalous density in the pant legs), I get a pat-down when wearing them.

As others have said, having a scrunched-up tissue in your pocket is enough to trigger a pat-down. So when they say “empty your pockets”, make sure there is nothing more than tiny pieces of lint left in them.

I like to wear shorts myself (athletic wear, not Dockers), but the plane can get cold depending on time of day/airline/duration/alignment of the planets/etc. So baggy sweat pants with no metal is likely the safest bet. FWIW, I think tight-fitting pants would reduce your chances of getting a pat-down, because the fibers would be stretched, and therefore more transparent to scanning. However, as long as your pants are not unusually thick, I don’t think it is really necessary to resort to such measures.

If you want to maximize your clothing transparency to millimeter wave detectors, which is the same as saying “look as naked as possible at millimeter wave frequencies”, then you can tweak things even further with your material choice, courtesy of the US Army. Take note of Figure 5, on page 6. Transparency, ranked from best to worst is:

  • rayon
  • nylon
  • silk
  • naugahyde
  • denim
  • leather
  • linen
  • wool

Of course, I’m hand-waving a bit here, as each material overlaps the other on some data points (frequencies), and I have no idea what wavelength is used by actual scanners, or whether it’s common or varies a lot. The ultimate source for this data comes from another study (again paid partly by the US Army), which has this helpful summary in the abstract:

All samples were usefully transparent at millimeter-wave frequencies
(up to 300GHz) based on a 3dB criterion, but became progressively
opaque at higher frequencies in a highly sample-dependent manner. This
is explained by the samples becoming “optically dense” in the THz
region, so that the transmission becomes exponentially dependent on
sample thickness. The attenuation in the IR region is very high
(⩾25dB) except in two samples (rayon and nylon), whose exceptional
transparency (e.g., −12dB in nylon) is attributed to pores intrinsic
to the material.

So, if you really wanna get your “airport security naked” on, then go for the thinnest nylon or rayon pants sans metal that you can find. I’d recommend pantyhose, but that will probably get you flagged for other reasons. 😉 Note that material thickness also matters, so if you go the sweat pants route, thick, heavy sweat pants will work against your goal. Silk or nylon pajama pants sounds like the winner.

airport transfer – Going through security at Ft. Lauderdale on a connecting flight

This airport doesn’t have an airside pedestrian access, nor airside buses or trams. All transfers between terminals are accomplished by exiting the terminal and taking shuttle buses that run regularly around the airport from one terminal to the next.

Assuming your first flight has departure from a US airport, whether you’ll go through security again at Ft. Lauderdale will depend on what airline(s) you’re on, and whether your flights arrive and depart from the same Ft. Lauderdale airport terminal. If you edit your question to provide airline and flight information, a more specific answer can be provided.

TL;DR: If you have to change terminals in Ft. Lauderdale to reach your ongoing flight to Cancun, you’ll exit the arriving flight’s terminal, shuttle to the departing flight’s terminal, then have to go through security again to reach the departing flight.

Are airport car rentals always open until the last flight has landed, regardless of the official working hours?

Recently I had a flight to Kona/Hawaii that arrived at 10pm. The local car rentals all appeared to close at 10:30pm and there’s now a secondary COVID test in Hawaii that can take up a lot of time, so I’ve decided I’ll just get a taxi and come back for the car the next day. But to my surprise, I saw a car rental shuttle at 10:45pm and was in fact able to pick up my car. Their employee told me that they’re always open until the last flight has landed and picked up their luggage, so their hours vary.

Is this the case for all airport car rentals, at least in the US? Can I always book a car without worrying about my flight being delayed?

air travel – Why does one sometimes have to go through two subsequent security gates at El Alto International Airport (LPB, La Paz, Bolivia)?

I took a flight from El Alto International Airport (LPB, La Paz, Bolivia) to Alejandro Velasco Astete Airport (CUZ, Cusco, Peru), and passengers for this flight (boarding gate R20) were required to go through two security gates that directly followed each other, while for some other flights passengers didn’t have to go through the second security gate.

Why does one sometimes have to go through two subsequent security gates at El Alto International Airport (LPB, Lima, Peru)?

That seemed redundant as the second security gate was only scanning the passengers’ luggage while the first security gate was scanning passengers’ luggage and bodies, but I’m assuming there is a good reason for it. The second security gate didn’t require passengers to remove anything from the luggage before the scan.

canada – Transiting at Montreal airport to other Quebec airports – will I be quarantined in Montreal or at my destination?

I’m a european citizen going to Canada for work. My destination is in Quebec, but there’s no direct flight from my city to the destination, i.e. I have to change flight at Montreal airport.

I know I will be quarantined for 2 weeks, but will I be quarantined at Montreal -1st place I reach in Canada], or can I take a second intern flight and quarantine myself at my destination?

australia – Returning to Vic (Aus) – officials at airport said we needed to get covid tests, airport denies all knowledge. Scam?

So I just got back into Victoria (Avalon airport) yesterday, after a holiday in Queensland (Gold Coast – did not visit Brisbane). When we were in the Gold Coast, we were texted by the government and told to get tested and self-isolate, which we did.

At Avalon, we had to queue to get out of the airport, in a tiny room (so no social distancing), had our ID (so drivers licences), addresses etc taken and told we had to get tested and self-isolate. Some people were told within 72 hours, some (including us) 24. We arrived just before 6pm, before the new traffic light permit system was introduced to enter Victoria.

We have since gotten these permits, which say we should be able to enter Vic from Qld with no issues whatsoever.

The handling was extremely shoddy – it was a small room and as such no social distancing could happen. The lady serving us at the desk when we got to the end of the queue, asking all the questions about where we’d been, wasn’t even wearing her mask properly, and photos of ID and details taken were recorded on what appeared to be their own personal phones. As the room is so small and has little facilities, my wife even had to breastfeed our infant son on the floor. When we asked what had happened (since we could find no record of new restrictions other than the traffic light permit system anywhere on the internet), the staff just said “things had changed while we were in transit”. Nobody could provide anything conclusive.

Since then I’ve called the airport administration, who say they’ve got no record of anything like this happening. It was either done without consultation by the government (and again, we can’t find anything about this anywhere), or the airline in question (JetStar). However, with how unofficial it all seemed, I am beginning to wonder if it was a scam in order to get identity details (since when we were in Queensland they texted us, using details from the flight manifest). When calling the covid hotline, they also had no knowledge of this.

Has this been a scam, or has anyone else seen this?

ory – Is it possible to transit through Orly Airport with two separate tickets?

I’m Algerian and U.S. Permanent Resident, I have a repatriation flight booking from ORY to Algiers Airport and a Separate ticket from JFK to ORY passing through CASABLANCA Airport (Morrocco), I was wondering If I’ll be let to board in.
Thank you for your answers.
All flights are operated by Royal Air Morocoo, and Air Algerie from Orly to Algiers.