So, I posted Part 4 prior to leaving the Dominican Republic. My experience leaving the DR prompts me to post one last message which I hope anyone who reads this post takes to heart.
After waiting two hours in the airlines and security lines, I finally made it to the x ray screening machines. At this point, my flight was boarding in 10 minutes. The xray people decided that my carryon luggage with my regulator set needed a secondary inspection. The security people opened up my regset bag and kept saying "check". Apparently, my regset posed a threat to aviation security. As far as I know no one has successfully or unsuccessfully tried to hijack a commercial aircraft with a regset. However, at this point, my choices were to either miss my flight or to lose my regulator set.
Instead, I asked to speak to someone in English who could explain to me why I could not take my regulator set as carry on luggage. The response was "no". I approached several other security personnel to see if anyone spoke English. Apparently not. My requests to speak to a supervisor were also met with "no". After several more minutes, the scene developed to the point that an airport management individual eventually came from somewhere and allowed us to pass with my reg set in hand stating that it was all a "misunderstanding". Up to that point, thoughts of being detained in the DR because of this "misunderstanding" also came to mind.
It is completely absurd for a country in close proximity to the US which has tourism as a major industry with US citizens not to have anyone at the airport security operations area who can speak English. I could understand this being the case in some remote country that does not promote their tourism industry, but not in the Dominican Republic. I am sure that I am not the only individual to have a problem like this. Hopefully, this experience will help someone else from either missing their flight or losing their regset.
I am planning on writing a letter to the Dominican Republic Tourism agency if such an organization even exists. At this point it would be really hard for me to suggest that anyone visit the Dominican Republic.
After waiting two hours in the airlines and security lines, I finally made it to the x ray screening machines. At this point, my flight was boarding in 10 minutes. The xray people decided that my carryon luggage with my regulator set needed a secondary inspection. The security people opened up my regset bag and kept saying "check". Apparently, my regset posed a threat to aviation security. As far as I know no one has successfully or unsuccessfully tried to hijack a commercial aircraft with a regset. However, at this point, my choices were to either miss my flight or to lose my regulator set.
Instead, I asked to speak to someone in English who could explain to me why I could not take my regulator set as carry on luggage. The response was "no". I approached several other security personnel to see if anyone spoke English. Apparently not. My requests to speak to a supervisor were also met with "no". After several more minutes, the scene developed to the point that an airport management individual eventually came from somewhere and allowed us to pass with my reg set in hand stating that it was all a "misunderstanding". Up to that point, thoughts of being detained in the DR because of this "misunderstanding" also came to mind.
It is completely absurd for a country in close proximity to the US which has tourism as a major industry with US citizens not to have anyone at the airport security operations area who can speak English. I could understand this being the case in some remote country that does not promote their tourism industry, but not in the Dominican Republic. I am sure that I am not the only individual to have a problem like this. Hopefully, this experience will help someone else from either missing their flight or losing their regset.
I am planning on writing a letter to the Dominican Republic Tourism agency if such an organization even exists. At this point it would be really hard for me to suggest that anyone visit the Dominican Republic.
