<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Duplicate boarding passes lead to trouble
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->LAST Saturday, I was at Changi Airport to see off my good friend from India whose husband had been transferred back to the country after working here for the past two years.
They had some extra luggage of about 40kg, for which the trio (husband, wife and daughter) were issued boarding passes and sent to the excess baggage counter to make payment.
After payment was made, they were issued two additional boarding passes in the name of the wife and the daughter. They did not think to check the extra boarding passes and proceeded to immigration.
Security officers who saw the extra boarding passes then alerted the higher authorities. An immigration officer and police officers were also summoned and my friend's family were questioned on the duplicate boarding passes. Their explanation turned out to be futile and they were escorted to the check-in and excess baggage counters.
Staff at both counters did not accept their mistake and blamed each other. No senior officer was present or was called to explain the mistake. Instead, police asked my friends about their particulars and they were asked to give an undertaking that the staff were in no way responsible for the mix-up.
This incident has left my friend and her husband with a bad impression of Singapore. Suhas Bhide
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->LAST Saturday, I was at Changi Airport to see off my good friend from India whose husband had been transferred back to the country after working here for the past two years.
They had some extra luggage of about 40kg, for which the trio (husband, wife and daughter) were issued boarding passes and sent to the excess baggage counter to make payment.
After payment was made, they were issued two additional boarding passes in the name of the wife and the daughter. They did not think to check the extra boarding passes and proceeded to immigration.
Security officers who saw the extra boarding passes then alerted the higher authorities. An immigration officer and police officers were also summoned and my friend's family were questioned on the duplicate boarding passes. Their explanation turned out to be futile and they were escorted to the check-in and excess baggage counters.
Staff at both counters did not accept their mistake and blamed each other. No senior officer was present or was called to explain the mistake. Instead, police asked my friends about their particulars and they were asked to give an undertaking that the staff were in no way responsible for the mix-up.
This incident has left my friend and her husband with a bad impression of Singapore. Suhas Bhide