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Traveling through Belgium can become tricky very quickly



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Making our way from IAH - Houston Airport, TX USA to BJL - Banjul Airport, Gambia became more complicated than it ought to be. Using the kiosks at IAH required that we (I was traveling with my wife and younger son) check in (all the way to Banjul) and the United airline attendants were on hand to assist with clearing us through as long as we had these 3 things...


Passport was a check, so was the negative Covid-19 test result, however we had to fill out the PLF as well to be cleared. I scanned a QR code on the side of the kiosk which sent me to the online form . At some point in the form, I had to enter my phone number so that a PIN would be sent to me in order to submit the form. Unfortunately, no PIN came through and with no PIN, I couldn't submit the form, which ultimately meant I couldn't be cleared to check in for our flight, which by the way was going to lay us over at ORD Chicago O'Hare before boarding another flight to BRU Brussels.


We immediately went to United's customer service desk to for help "at least check us in to our flight to Chicago" I pleaded, "no" the gentleman at the counter replied somewhat apologetically,

"your luggage has to be checked all the way to Banjul and we can't do that except you get the PIN" confused my wife went online on her phone and found out that you could fill out downloadable copy of the form manually, great news right? No! we had to print it and United does not have printers... at least not the type we needed.


Totally frustrated at this point and with our time dwindling away I took another shot at the kiosk, this time another attendant came round and I showed her my passport (check), the negative covid-19 test result (check) and the PLF... well I flashed my phone to her telling her "I've filled the form" and she cleared me. She did the same for my wife and son and we were good to go.


At ORD we made our way to our departure gate and United staff were handing out copies of the PLF to all passengers boarding the plane to Brussels each adult passenger had to fill out the document twice, so two copies, one to be retained for our records and one to be submitted to the the airline for their record.



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We eventually made it to BJL (Banjul, Gambia) as scheduled, but learnt a few lessons along the way...


  1. We should be better prepared for our next trip and print all the required documents as technology can fail us

  2. United staff need to more helpful and creative towards a solution

  3. United needs printers

  4. Don't give up

The funny thing about our trip was that we could have missed our flight for a form that no one collected. I still have both copies... for my record.





 
 
 

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