I’m due to take my first flight of the summer in a couple of weeks and, as an anxious person, my needless fretting has already begun. With a bit of time before me and the travel event, baggage is currently taking the lead on the worry-o-meter. We’re doing a music festival in Barcelona for three nights on one small bag (40x20x25) each. Usually, I’m good for it. I’ve done two weeks in Portugal with a 10kg carry on. I’ve done four days in Paris on the one small bag. I have the tiny toiletries down pat. I’m very partial to a mini.
If social media is to be believed, the budget airlines are cracking down. They’re seeing your assumption that your backpack is about 40x20x25 and they’re raising you the little sizer of doom. I’ve seen several videos of passengers pushing their bags into the example cage only to be notified that there are two centimetres peeping over the top of the sizer.
The cries of “but I’ve brought this holdall to Fuerteventura three times with no issues” fall on deaf ears, and fines are doled out. Up to €75 in some instances. These flights to Barcelona were already eye-wateringly expensive, so the thought of a backpack bulge adding another potential €150 to the cost is almost as distressing as the idea of not being the Best Girl at the Airport.
Yes, it’s true. I am the undisputed champion of Best Girl at the Airport. My special skill is “most efficient person to ever go through security”, which is tricky given that the goalposts are always moving. One trip it’s “take your Kindle out of your bag you knuckle-dragging wally. Do you want to bring down an entire Boeing 737 with your Hunger Games trilogy?” But then the next time, you could get hissed and spat at for daring to have the Kindle out and ready to be placed in a tray. Same for little sandwich bags of liquids. They usually have to be out on full display – extra-strength deodorant, piles cream, KY Jelly. You name it, it’s sailing along the belt. There is the odd special occasion when the liquids and gels should stay in the bag. You’d never catch me banking on that though.
Something I know for certain at airport security is that the belts must come off. Obviously, I never wear one. I’d lose Best Girl points immediately. One of the cruellest aspects of the security queue is being made to stand and watch while others learn of the belt-off rule and behave as if they’ve just hatched fresh from an egg. “I must remove my belt? And this coat and scarf? And I can’t bring this 400ml bottle of Herbal Essences?” Best Girls manage to keep their simmering rage under control, but these displays of ineptitude only serve to strengthen their resolve even further.
‘I lost many Best Girl points on a recent trip to Zurich by forgetting to drain my water bottle before hitting security. A rookie mistake’
Once I’m at the top of that queue, I’m laser focused. I’ve fired my bag into a tray before the security staff have even bellowed at me to come forward. BLAM! My liquids are down. WHAM! There’s my Kindle, just in case. THWACK! There’s my phone. As if I’d leave it in my pocket like some amateur. I brush off any suggestion that I might be wearing a belt or carrying keys. I already know my shoes are below ankle height because I planned it that way. The Americans will make you take them off anyway, so I’ll often employ a different footwear strategy if heading stateside.
I learned long ago that underwired bras may set off the scanners, and are instruments of torture anyway, so it’s non-wired all the way. Sometimes you get pulled for a random drug swab, and listen, we all become convinced that we unwittingly swallowed seven condoms of cocaine for breakfast when that happens. Mostly though, I sail through, and am free to wait in the Recombobulation Area, where we all anxiously watch and wait to see whether our bag will be chosen for a humiliating search. I lost many Best Girl points on a recent trip to Zurich by forgetting to drain my water bottle before hitting security. A rookie mistake. Luckily the latex-gloved overlord didn’t rifle through my backpack and see I’d brought eight pairs of knickers for a two-night stay.
[ Emer McLysaght: To the person in front of me at airport security . . .Opens in new window ]
Obviously, I recombobulate quickly, and aggressively return my tray and the trays of the uncouth oafs who left theirs strewn around before immediately heading off to confirm my boarding gate exists, safe in the knowledge that my Best Girl crown is intact.
Until, that is, they bring out the bag-sizer of doom.
