Holy shit, I just came as close as I ever want to to being deported! I am in Tehran airport and my next flight is to Baku in Azerbaijan. However, because I'm flying out of Baku on a different airline I'm not registered as a transit passenger, which means I need a full visa. Australians can't get these on arrival.
In Tehran the info is super sketchy. Apparently the rules changed a week ago so you now need to get an Iranian visa on arrival (145 euros). Someone from the airport comes down and takes your passport and gets your boarding pass for you, then you go and pay for the visa.
My problem started with the boarding pass. The guy came back and asked if I had a visa for Azerbaijan and I said no. He says "Man, I should deport you". I heard should and thought he was taking the piss. Iranians are known for their great sense of humor, after all. But nope. He got on the phone and the only word I could make out was "deport". He said it a lot. Then he says to follow him and off we go to a Malaysian airlines flight back to Kuala Lumpur!
At the plane I told him that this is dumb, I'll just get a different flight to Budapest or somewhere else in Europe. He's like "Budapest?" so I showed him my boarding pass for my flight to Budapest. The guy from I should point out that on the walk down to the plane we acquired 7 or 8 other people, including a janitor (with mop and bucket) who wanted to see what all the commotion was about.
One of the acquisitions was a man who worked for Malaysian Airlines, who convinced this dude to sort it out for me. He ran Azerbaijan and tried to sort it out but failed, then he tried again and succeeded, I hope. I'm not yet in Azerbaijan but he says they'll accept me. If not they should just deport me onwards to Budapest!
I was so happy I kept calling him a legend. He started laughing and said not to thank him, it's his job. I replied that he's lucky I'm not kissing him. Thank God he ignored that. I could've ended up with the death penalty!
There were a bunch of other guys who were also supposed to be on this flight. They also didn't have an Azerbaijan visa and had also booked through the God awful kiwi.com. I got separated for deportation with this one staff member while another staff member sorted them out. I think the other staff member realised they don't have a visa either but didn't have the ability to call up Azerbaijan. Because they aren't on this flight. I may have got really bloody lucky!
Here's the kicker... Because he walked me through to the plane to deport me, I was already in the departure lounge, so after he fixed it up for me I just stayed there and didn't get the 145 Euro Iranian visa!
In Tehran the info is super sketchy. Apparently the rules changed a week ago so you now need to get an Iranian visa on arrival (145 euros). Someone from the airport comes down and takes your passport and gets your boarding pass for you, then you go and pay for the visa.
My problem started with the boarding pass. The guy came back and asked if I had a visa for Azerbaijan and I said no. He says "Man, I should deport you". I heard should and thought he was taking the piss. Iranians are known for their great sense of humor, after all. But nope. He got on the phone and the only word I could make out was "deport". He said it a lot. Then he says to follow him and off we go to a Malaysian airlines flight back to Kuala Lumpur!
At the plane I told him that this is dumb, I'll just get a different flight to Budapest or somewhere else in Europe. He's like "Budapest?" so I showed him my boarding pass for my flight to Budapest. The guy from I should point out that on the walk down to the plane we acquired 7 or 8 other people, including a janitor (with mop and bucket) who wanted to see what all the commotion was about.
One of the acquisitions was a man who worked for Malaysian Airlines, who convinced this dude to sort it out for me. He ran Azerbaijan and tried to sort it out but failed, then he tried again and succeeded, I hope. I'm not yet in Azerbaijan but he says they'll accept me. If not they should just deport me onwards to Budapest!
I was so happy I kept calling him a legend. He started laughing and said not to thank him, it's his job. I replied that he's lucky I'm not kissing him. Thank God he ignored that. I could've ended up with the death penalty!
There were a bunch of other guys who were also supposed to be on this flight. They also didn't have an Azerbaijan visa and had also booked through the God awful kiwi.com. I got separated for deportation with this one staff member while another staff member sorted them out. I think the other staff member realised they don't have a visa either but didn't have the ability to call up Azerbaijan. Because they aren't on this flight. I may have got really bloody lucky!
Here's the kicker... Because he walked me through to the plane to deport me, I was already in the departure lounge, so after he fixed it up for me I just stayed there and didn't get the 145 Euro Iranian visa!
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