its only a matter of time before they figure out a way to measure the liquid in your bladder and force you to remove any excess liquid

I have flown once from IXB. It is a MILITARY airport which is also open to civilian airport traffic, and located in a very sensitive region. What do you expect? It's like flying out of Edwards airforce base. They will probably strip search you every single time.

Not really. MiL airports with civilian uses already have controls in place . At no point are you expected to be within even telescope sight of a sensitive installation. also the moment an airport goes civilian, all critical topographic and gps data is already on Jeppesen. So unless you want to photograph a bunch of pathetic MiG-21s in IAf livery ---- or Sukhois in Pune ---- such behavior is intrusive to no purpose. if India can't sanitize mxed installations, stop using military airports for civilian purposes. why not build another, there's good bribes to be made for everybody and maybe even some jobs for the vast majority of my countrymen fr whom flying is just an unattainable dream....

Nope. I usually fly out of an Active Military Airbase which is open to Civilian Traffic. No Extra hassle to the passenger except you are not allowed to take photographs when you are in the tarmac / ramp. You may see a few extra men with arms in the ramp side.

Other then this there is no difference to the passenger.

i went through something really strange yesterday & was wondering whether anyone else here has experienced something similar....

i was flying from del-bom on kingfisher last evening....i got to the airport about an hour or so before my flight, went through security, got my hand luggage tags stamped, went to the lounge & was waiting to board my flight....

when they announced boarding i started walking towards my gate....i stopped at one of the restaurants & grabbed a sandwich & something to drink since i'm not particularly fond of the food kingfisher serves (i find it too heavy)....they gave me the sandwich & drink in a brown paper bag, i paid, got my change & the receipt & started walking towards the gate....i had my laptop bag on my shoulder & the brown paper bag in the other hand....i passed a garbage can on the way & threw the receipt away there....

i get to my gate, show them my boarding pass & walk up to the guard who checks whether the bags have been tagged....he saw the brown paper bag in my hand & asked me why i had not got that tagged....i told him i bought this after i passed security so he asked for a receipt....i told him i threw it away....he in turn tells me i cannot take the bag on board....i said its not a problem & took the contents of the bag out & was about to throw the bag away when the guard tells me i have to get the sandwich & drink scanned before i can take it on board....what followed was a couple of minutes of back & forth between us where he simply would not allow me to take the food on board unless i produced a receipt or got it scanned....it didn't matter whether i put it in my bag, carried it in hand or in the paper bag....he would not allow me to get on the flight....

i was just about ready to give up the damn sandwich & apple juice when his supervisor came up to the gate....what i didn't realise is that this guard actually called his supervisor in between all this....the supervisor says the exact same thing about the receipt otherwise he could not allow me to take the stuff on board....he said apparently it was a new policy....while the 2 of them spoke amongst each other i simply opened the sandwich & finished it....then i opened the apple juice can & drank it....i asked if i could board now....they had a weird look on their face as if they didn't know what to do next....but luckily sense prevailed & they allowed me to board....

i take over 100 flights a year & have probably spent more time in an airport in the last 3-4 years than most people would in a lifetime....but i have never come across anything like this before....it was a ridiculous conversation where i wasted 5 minutes of my life that i will never get back....

Hey Keyser, something like this happened to me a couple of times
long time ago at Chennai airport, i picked up some cookies post security and i was asked to produce the receipt (luckily the guy at the cookie counter had told me to keep it). more recently, at BOM, i picked up some stuff from Chroma and again i had to show the receipt at the gate

of course there is a difference in that the cookies and the Chroma stuff were in a box and i understand the requirement to either show a receipt or have it scanned

BUT a sandwich and a juice? thats just ridiculous. i have carried water i have purchased thru the del t3 vending machines and that was without a receipt - if you can take in stuff purchased from the snack and drink vending machines in Delhi which is without a receipt, i dont understand the difference (other than the fact that the vending machine doesnt provide a bag) - why not a sandwich and juice. if u had simply put the "snack" bag into your carry on before reaching the gate, the security guy wld have been none the wiser. this seems simply asinine to me and i have to agree with rathin's post earlier on security

Classic CISF (or whatever "security force" was involved)

Come on guys these guys work so hard to pass their civil service exams, they must know what they are doing no? Lucky you didn't get an IPs officer she/he would have insisted on a stomach scan!

You can often find a few stamped tags near the x-ray machines - you can pick up a few extra just in case. You could even tag your own sandwich.

Wow.. (Ive never looked). That really takes the biscuit. Amazing! and what a wonderful mockery of ""security""

exactly....if i had a bag then i can understand it needs to be scanned but this went a little too far in my opinion....

i did the same thing on the way back from bom-del earlier tonight to see what they say....this time however i kept the receipt for a sandwich & muffin from coffee bean....they didn't ask me for a receipt & just waved me through....

Do you guys remember the "no liquids on through security" era? This was a couple of years ago, just before BOM started its internal airside renovation. I had a bottle of water purchased outside the airport as it was April and baking hot. I had the full intention of drinking as much as i could and chucking the rest away at the check point. I approached the x ray and shovedthe bottle deep inside my rucksack. Not surpringly it got picked for a hand search but the CISF officer searching only did a half hearted job and i managed to get a whole 500ml bottle through. There were no kiosks after security in those days and you would go straight onto the aircraft. As soon as i got to the holding pen, i got the bottle out and started to drink whilst there were other passengers staring in disbelief that my water bottle was not confiscated whilst theirs was.

Okay, so I was flying out of BOM last night and there was this young man wearing some kind of an overcoat in the security line just ahead of me. The security guy sees him wearing the overcoat, asks him to remove it and put it in one of the x-ray trays, wands/pats him down, and on the other side of x-ray counter, asks him why the overcoat is not tagged? The young man says he was WEARING this piece of clothing and hence it was not technically a carry-on. The security guy counters by saying it has now become one since it has now gone through the x-ray conveyor belt!!!

I thought this was beyond any reason, logic or common-sense..!

Long story short, there were no spare tags at security and the poor kid was made to run back to the check-in counter. Wonder where exactly did he end up putting the tag on his overcoat.. hung it from a sleeve perhaps? I do hope he didn't actually wear a baggage-tagged coat

Who was this genius in the labyrinths of the Indian bureaucracy to come up with this brilliant idea of stamped baggage tags for carry-ons???

Ive worked in the Indian bureaucracy (on secondment, twice, each time 2 years) and, I promise you, there are many genuises in it, actively engaged in trying to make life as complicated for the citizen as possible with the least possible public benefit. There are a few hapless souls within it, not genuises, whose lowly duty it is try and control the damage. It is owing to these few souls that the machinery functions at all, and occasional innovations occur.

Its a closed shop of amateurs. Thats at the root of the problem. The system therefore facilitates malfeasance and incompetence, in any mix. It turns on little green sheets of paper that circulate endlessly with contributions in telegraphese constituting the collective wisdom of government. Sealed off from the outside there is ""application of mind"" ( a favourite Civil Service expression in India), by the mindless.

In departments that apply coercive power like Home and Defence the mixture is even more toxic as venality, too, goes unchecked

The sad story of civil aviation/aviation security in India is just one reflection of the horrid consequences of this broken, inadequate system. The Commonwealth Games was another. The list, sadly, will only grow.

He should have said he was instructed by a supervisor not to tag it under any circumstance as this was against regulations for wearable clothes.