SushiLog

This is a story in which I made a mistake, and Blue1 airline also screwed up making the situation even worse.

I am currently in Helsinki, Finland for what should have been a one night, one day business trip where I arrived on the evening of Tuesday the 8th and left on the evening of Wednesday the 9th.

On Tuesday, I ran a workshop in Paris from which I left straight for the airport. When I got to the airport, I realized that I forgot to take my passport. As both France and Finland are in the Schengen Area, I wasn’t sure if I actually needed to have my passport to travel. For those who’ve never heard of it, from Wikipedia: “The Schengen Area operates very much like a single state for international travel with border controls for travelers traveling in and out of the area, but with no internal border controls.” Traveling in the Schengen Area is similar, though not identical, to traveling within the American States.

As it was too late to return to my apartment to grab my passport, I decided to tempt fate and try boarding the plane with my American driver’s license. The Blue1 agent checking my ticket at CDG didn’t think twice before accepting my license and allowing me to board my plane.

Fast forward to the next evening, after finishing all the meetings in Finland, I arrived at the Easy Jet (I booked a different airline for the return trip to maximize my stay in Helsinki) counter only to be told that they couldn’t accept my American driver’s license to board the flight. I explained that Blue1 had no issues accepting my license for the trip which brought me to Finland but the people manning the counter wouldn’t budge from their policy.

At that point I walked over to the Blue1 counter to ask if their company policy allowed people to travel with an American driver’s license, and they told me that it’s no problem. As the last flight on Blue1 to Paris had already left for the evening, I decided that the early morning flight on Blue1 would be my backup plan and walked back to the Easy Jet counter to make one more plea to let me board my original flight. After I explained that Blue1 was fine with me traveling with just a license, this time they called the Finnish border control to verify. After a while, two men who looked like they haven’t smiled in the last decade came over and assessed the situation, looking over my license and the copy of the passport I had stored on my iPhone. Then they informed me that I could not travel without a valid passport or travel identification from my government and suggested that I get in touch with my embassy. They also told me that I was not legally allowed to be in their country without a passport and that they could arrest me and fine me, to which I could only respond, “I guess all I can say is please don’t.” To make situations worse, they then called the Blue1 counter informing them that I was not allowed to travel without a government document and instructed them not to allow me to fly my driver’s license, effectively eliminating my backup plan.

It turns out that European nationals from within the Schengen area are allowed to travel just with their national identity cards but foreigners are required have their passports when they board the flights. Blue1 definitely screwed up in allowing me to get on that flight from Paris to Helsinki. At the same time, traveling within the Schengen on bus, car, and train has absolutely no passport control or checks for any form of identity.

(Note added later: For those that don’t know me, I should add that I am a Japanese citizen currently living and working in Paris)

At this point, I had three possible solutions:

1. Go to the embassy first thing in the morning and apply for an emergency travel pass, which can be issued within the same day. This would allow me to travel back to Paris on Thursday night. However, there are some major challenges with this as embassies often deal with lost passports, not forgotten passports, which is almost an impossible situation since I shouldn’t be here in the first place.
2. Have Blue1 courier my passport to Helsinki as they fly multiple lines throughout the day. My girlfriend in Paris has my keys so she could actually get my passport to them. This would also allow me to fly back to Paris on Thursday night.
3. Have my girlfriend overnight mail my passport to Helsinki. This was the least preferred of all the options as I’ve had terrible luck with packages in the last few months (both my birthday and Christmas gifts from my mom were lost in the mail, I’m violently knocking on wood now), and I wouldn’t be able to get back until Friday night.

I then again left the Easy Jet counter for the Blue1 counter where the people were already aware of their special instructions not to let me fly without my passport. I inquired about the possibility of them couriering my passport as it was partially their fault that I was in this situation, but they told me there was absolutely no possibility. Then I asked them to at least cover my return flight as I had to forfeit my Easy Jet ticket, and they told me that I would have to contact Blue1 directly because they were actually a customer service company that Blue1 had outsourced to.

Without anything else I could do at the airport, I am now at my friend’s apartment writing this post. My plan now is to go to the Japanese embassy first thing in the morning and explain my situation in hopes of getting something that would allow me to travel on Thursday. If that fails, I’m going to get my passport shipped overnight in hopes to catch the last flight out of Helsinki on Friday. Of course in the meantime, I’m missing important work engagements back in Paris.

In the end I’m glad that I have friends that are being extremely helpful and that I can keep a sense of humor about it. After it’s all said and done, this is going to be another one of those stories that becomes a notch in my helmet, and it doesn’t compare at all to my check box saga in terms of impact and severity.

Here is to hoping for a better tomorrow.

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