This past week my wife and I traveled from Portland PDX, Oregon to Paris CDG, France en route to Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. I decided to travel with my rig as I had done on previous trips, taking it along as a carry-on. Through PDX, aside from an extra scan, there was no problem. After a 7 hour layover in Atlanta, Georgia, we left for France on a Delta flight. Six hours later we arrived in Paris, CDG. When transferring from one international flight to another in Paris, particularly when headed to Africa, there is normally another security check one must pass. Due to construction perhaps or due to the way the French organize themselves, the security checks are usually very congested and the agents hardly have time for the unusual. Such was not our luck this time however. We arrived at a security check where there was no queue and we had all the time in the world. As it turned out it was a good thing.
In Paris if your luggage calls for increased scrutiny it blocks the entire process. My rig sat in the scanner for about 45 minutes while the different security agents discussed whether or not the rig could continue on board. The problem was not the rig but the Vigil AAD which had all of the signs of a "bomb" (they used the word) and until they had a higher authority check it out it was not going to move. While all of this was going on we had a pleasant conversation about skydiving, who had tried it, who had not, and why everyone else thought it was crazy to even try, during which time the line grew longer and longer. Finally the proper authority (in this case a gendarme) arrived and after examination of the scan, he explained to me that they would not allow such a device in the cabin with me because it contained an explosive. Somehow the words, "Guillotine Pyrotechique" sound so much more ominous than “Cutter Unit” as Vigil so aptly puts it in the French language. Even though I had been through the TSA in the US and had all of the documentation I could see that this was going nowhere. I was in one of those situations where showing anything that the TSA, USPA or the FAA had concocted would have served only to seal my fate. After all this was “La France” and not the United States!
The Vigil documentation in French was helpful but it all came down to the fact that the laws of France are not the same as elsewhere in the world and, “here we take security seriously!” Even the copy of the “Certificat de Classement” which Vigil includes on its x-ray card seemed to work against us, it being written by “une autorité compétente” in Belgium. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in France would understand why I did not insist that they re-read that certificate. All said, the gendarme was practically apologetic as he guided me through the labyrinth of CDG Airport to the Air France desk where we asked if we could check the rig and make our flight. The fact that I had to pay €150 for an extra bag was a bit sour but in the end it all came through just fine. I think that since we were transferring from a Delta flight where the service was terrible and the food was no better to an Air France flight where they make sure you eat better than any other airline in the sky and they actually use coffee to make coffee took away the sting of having to pay for an extra bag. Not everything about France is necessarily negative.
When I think back over the whole scenario, I don’t think that there is much that I could have done differently aside from check the bag in Portland or not take my rig at all. The latter was out of the question and in Portland it just didn’t seem right to check it. Côte d'Ivoire may seem like a strange place to be with a rig right now but I figure if we are going to start re-building this country after that past 7 years of civil unrest, skydiving ought to be part of the formula. So if anyone else is thinking of traveling to Côte d'Ivoire to skydive, a word to the wise, when coming through France, be ready to see security issues through other eyes and forget about quoting the FAA or the TSA, they are meaningless to your average security official in France.
