I was treated so poorly at that airport. I left SA as a child and returned to visit 14 years later with a Australian passport but my birthplace is Johannesburg. All my carry on was ‘stolen’ by security and they used some of my international sized toiletries on themselves in front of me, speaking in Xhosa that I did not understand.
It was a frightening experience. I never felt such relief when I was on the plane back to Australia.
It is heart breaking because I am South African and will always love it, but it is no way to treat people.
About 2-3 years ago I flew out of OR Tambo (currently live overseas) after a trip back home. My passport was almost full, so I very politely asked the immigration officer to stamp on a page that already had stamps on it rather than a blank page because some immigration officers love to stamp on blank pages every time (not just a South African thing but worldwide).
She gave me a ton of attitude just for that simple request, saying things like "I'll stamp where I want, don't tell me where to stamp", etc.
Well okay then. Guess she's never been through the hell of trying to apply for a new South African passport from overseas. Never had a problem with the staff at Cape Town International or King Shaka.
OR Tambo is also a 'silent' airport now, so they don't make any flight announcements over the PA. On a different trip, they decided to change the boarding gate for my flight from the original one to one that was completely on the opposite end of the airport. At the last minute. I literally had to run from one end of the airport to the other. Got to the new boarding gate and the guy from the airline is wondering where everyone is. I told him that they just changed the boarding gate now and everyone is probably at the other one, so they had to send someone running there to call everywhere over to the new gate. Flight ended up being delayed because of the last-minute change with no announcement. Yeah that's why you don't have a silent airport. Never really had a great experience at OR Tambo tbh.
Ha, toiletries always get taken "confiscated" , dont matter where you go in the world, but first I heard of them using them, before throwing them away. At least they got some use.
If you have low expectations for where you live and travel and how you and others get treated, that’s absolutely fine. Others may not be accepting and it is definitely not the norm.
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u/kleintjie16 Aug 13 '21
I was treated so poorly at that airport. I left SA as a child and returned to visit 14 years later with a Australian passport but my birthplace is Johannesburg. All my carry on was ‘stolen’ by security and they used some of my international sized toiletries on themselves in front of me, speaking in Xhosa that I did not understand. It was a frightening experience. I never felt such relief when I was on the plane back to Australia.
It is heart breaking because I am South African and will always love it, but it is no way to treat people.