Forrest Bump

We can get an hint from this:

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...inal-transfer/

IAN-UK

Come on. Hundreds of people make airside transfers between terminals at Cairo everyday, without resorting to bribery.

Lucky knew perfectly well what he needed to do. Buy a visa, go landside, collect bags and check-in again. The faff is the quid pro quo for saving a thousand dollars or more on your ticket price. There's no need for VIP services.

But he's a chancer, played the system and ended up bribing an official.

There's no doubt there are opportunists at the airport waiting for amiable twerps they can ask for tips. They found one in Lucky.

At the end of the day, Lucky was suborning officials: that's bad news for all of us. And it could have been extremely bad news for Lucky, too, if he'd been caught out.


It's a funny story Lucky can dine out on with credulous friends back home. But at the end of the day, he's helping corrupt officials: that's bad news for the rest of us.

MeltingAlf

A bit late but it seems HBE does produce quite decent (sometime same price fares) compared to Luxor. It's easier to get to as well, so HBE is a decent spot to start.

I'd be looking forward to see what QR is going to bring with the 9th Jan Travel Festival!

That guy be the death of us all! The cheek of him to publish it - I wouldn't go back to CAI if I was him since they could be waiting for him to get him. I wouldn't be surprised if his gall is going to get him locked out of even more things in future - he's been caught doing something pretty undesirable on United MP that got him banned as far as I know of.

JohnAx

Thanks very much for this insight. Although the linked poster got a bunch of crap heaped on him by people anxious to pretend 3rd-world airports would be perfectly secure were it not for 1st-world travelers stuffing bribes into the pockets of the locals, the real message is that at CAI there's an active system in place to move pax and bags around the airport with complete disregard for security.

A corollary giggle is that should this story ever be stuffed in the face of a government official, he'd loudly deny that such a thing did or could happen.

Fitch

Shocking but not surprising

All Egyptian starts / tranfers now off my bucket list indefinitely...

IAN-UK

Yet the loveable Lucky* has helpfully posted photographs that identify him

*What a plonker!

whimike

Come on, let's not be silly.

Having been through CAI countless times myself there is a culture of expectation of tipping from foreigners, it is a far stretch to consider this illegal bribing. It is even a further stretch to think the Egyptian government would give any consideration to prosecuting its airport guy for taking a $10 tip.

I take it you have never been to Cairo? How would it have been bad news for the guy had he been caught out for giving the guy $10? Who would have caught him out? Who, in Cairo, would have cared? If you brought this up to an official to complain you would get laughed out of the room. You can't compare Egypt to the US or UK where this would have been a completely different matter.

If you don't wish to tip that is your prerogative. I am sure you can get through the whole ordeal without tipping anything. But, in my experience, tipping (small amounts) makes things go a lot more smoothly.

It is a different discussion whether this is ethical or not and what is acceptable in the western world is entirely different to other parts of the world. Compare it to being pulled over by the police, in the UK or US you get your ticket and it never crosses your mind to try to bribe the cop, in other parts of the world you either pay the cop some money or you end up in jail. Take your pick.

whimike

That isn't the case here. When the blog writer went through the first security check where he was waved through, that is to just enter the check-in area, it is not the main security check which occurs at the gate.

IAN-UK

It goes without saying that ECHAAN/ECA/ECAA all take security seriously. As of course do the Egyptian border services. So did CAI's management partner, FRAport, and so do the current monitoring and auditing bodies.

There's the world of difference between routine low-level tipping and suborning officials. It's the difference between porters jiggling foreigners to get their bags to check-in and someone paying an official to subvert legally established procedures.

Now this official might have taken Lucky as naive fool and simply guided him through established track enhanced by a couple of short-cuts. Sold him an ersatz VIP service for $10.

Re-reading Lucky's breathless account suggests this was the case. He was simply inserted into T2's arrival system at an unorthodox point. The security he "avoided" after picking up his bags was (most probably) the scanners for people bringing stuff into Egypt. Lucky wasn't importing anything, and was accompanied by a security official who then took him to the check-in area, and then to immigration.

The fact the suited man acted with confidence and had the respect of the security/police suggests this was a practiced and legitimate run used for VIPs.

Now it starts to get weird. I spend a lot of time in Egypt, and leaving involves a security check to get airside after immigration, and another to get into the gate area. There are at least two passport checks by different branches of officialdom - the final one before boarding (or before getting on the bus that takes you to the aircraft): these reconcile boarding cards and passports, and check for the exit stamp as someone leaving Egypt, or someone transiting the airport (I have dozens of the former and one for each of the few transfers I've made). I've even left as a VIP (clearly a mistake , but i was in exalted company) but even then the paperwork and stamping was followed rigorously .


So it's possible Lucky is being a bit of a diva, painting drama and adventure where neither existed. But in the meantime giving Cairo and Egypt the sort of press it doesn't need, or deserve.



As for your wider point about largesse being expected from foreigners, that's largely because foreigners, particularly those with a rampant tipping culture at home, feel intimidated in an alien culture. Also because they read silly stories in blogs about the need to grease their passage through Egypt.

whimike

I think you are correct on the diva point as he could have easily made it clear security wasn't compromised. Even here on FT a poster is saying he won't travel to/from CAI due to security when there is no such issue.

While some foreigners may feel intimated in a alien culture, my experience is that the workers at the airport are well versed at intimidating foreigners into tipping, in fact Lucky hadn't planned on tipping until the guy he was dealing with pressured him to. I wonder what would have occurred if Lucky had said no when the guy asked if he will tip? Gone back to reading his paper and let Lucky wait another hour? Tell him to buy a visa and go through the normal process? It seems to me like $10 well spent, it is cheaper than buying a visa.

IAN-UK

I get the impression Lucky isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer at the best of times. He's dazzled by bling and burdened by a sense of entitlement. So I'm guessing he had no real idea what was happening, and has made sense of it through the filter of western perceptions of Egypt.

That same filter provoked someone on FT to cite Qatar Airways' use of a remote stand at CAI, and the airline's "fast turnaround" there, as evidence of the caution shown by airlines using the airport. Of course, he hadn't realised ALL T1 operations are remote (no airbridges); and QR operates bog-standard short-haul turnarounds there. BA has been happy to park at the airport overnight. etc

whimike

+1 in agreement. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...