May
19, 2009 - Although Anne entered and departed Iraq exclusively through Amman,
people assigned to Embassy Baghdad and its satellite offices also have the
option of transiting through Kuwait. The
advantages are military air (milair) flights that fly five times a week
(instead of only the Thursday and Sunday flights to Amman) and the possibility
of booking a non-stop flight to Washington, DC (while flights from Amman
require a transfer in a European city). (As
of this writing, the United flight departs Kuwait at 11:45 p.m. and arrives in
Dulles at 6:45 a.m. the following day. A
United code-share non-stop operated by Lufthansa also leaves an hour later.) You are still required, however, to begin
your travel a day early to stay overnight at the State Department Sully
Compound at Baghdad International Airport (BIAP), since check-in for the flight
is fairly early in the morning, and, in Kuwait, the State Department will not
authorize a stay in a hotel while waiting for the flight like it does for a
transit through Amman. (One can, of
course, always pay for a hotel room out-of-pocket.) I decided to go to Kuwait on my second
R&R, since I planned to travel to Virginia to attend my daughter's university
graduation. (As it turned out, I didn't
book the non-stop flight but transited through Frankfurt.)
Transiting
through Kuwait requires dealing with two different offices and a different
travel agency. The Iraq Support Unit
(ISU) Amman, which is the single point-of-contact for Amman transits, issues
the travel orders, but ISU Kuwait coordinates on-the-ground arrangements with
the Federal Deployment Center (FDC) and ticketing with the U.S. Embassy
Kuwait's contract travel agency in Kuwait, Al-Rashed International Travel Company. (This explains something that puzzled me
initially, why my flight was priced in Kuwaiti dinars.) ISU Kuwait provides a good guide, "Traveling
through Kuwait," which I am drawing from to write this, but the guide is
somewhat confusing and I am also supplementing the information with my own
personal observations.
My
itinerary originally had me departing Kuwait in the early morning of May 6, at
12:55 a.m, after arriving in Kuwait on May 5.
The C-130 departing from BIAP, however, needed a part replaced, and the
bad dust storm prevented the part from being flown in. Al-Rashed travel was reasonably responsive
about provisionally rebooking me on a flight the next night, but the experience
points up the increasing likelihood of flight delays now that the Embassy has
had to switch from the C-17 Globemaster to the older C-130 Hercules, a
turboprop airplane first introduced in 1956 (although with continuous upgrades
and improvements). The more limited
passenger capacity of the C-130 has also created problems rebooking lower
priority travelers on later flights.
The
dust storm continued to play hob with my travel arrangements, but after being
listed on stand-by twice, a C-17 took everyone who had flights canceled to
Kuwait mid-day on May 6. After an hour
flight, we landed at the U.S. Air Force Ali Al-Salem Air Base, where waiting
buses took passengers to the U.S. Army Life Support Area (LSA) of the Air Force
base, where the military wait for connecting military flights. We exited the bus and were taken to Tent Three,
where we handed over our Department of Defense (DoD) identification, the Common
Access Card (CAC), to have them scanned in.
When I got my CAC back, we proceeded to Tent Two, next door, to the
contractor processing center, where I emphasized that I was not a contractor,
but a U.S. Embassy employee and filled out a form with my identifying details
and did not apply for a Kuwaiti visa. I
then retrieved my luggage, which had been placed in a pallet across the street
from where we got off the bus and headed to Tent One. At the very end of Tent One, I joined two
other Embassy employees at the USM-I (U.S. Mission Iraq) counter, which I think
might be staffed and operated by KBR on a contract. I turned in my personal protective equipment
(PPE) and received a receipt to be used to claim it again on my return
trip. Within a few minutes, the USM-I
counter person was taking us to the Crowne Plaza Hotel, about a 45-minute drive
to Kuwait proper. (Normally, the USM-I
liaison would have met us as soon as we got off the bus upon arrival, but we
had arrived on a non-scheduled military mission and not on the usual milair
flight that the State Department arranges with DoD for Embassy personnel.)
In
lieu of authorizing a hotel room for the half-day in Kuwait, the State
Department maintains what appears to be two junior suites, one on the second floor
and another on the third floor of the Crowne Plaza, as the previously mentioned
Federal Deployment Center (FDC) lounges.
(One reason might be the cost of hotel rooms in Kuwait. We were told that a room at the Crowne Plaza
cost more than $300 per night, about twice the U.S. government per diem rate in
Amman.) The beds have been taken out of
the room, and sofas and armchairs have been placed in the living room and what
would normally be a separate bedroom.
The bathroom is stocked with clean towels and there are two computer
terminals with internet access in the second-floor FDC lounge and just one terminal
in the third-floor lounge. Both rooms
have a large-screen TV with satellite, but not military Armed Forces Network,
reception. I watched a little
television, and then took a nap on the sofa in the bedroom area, since I had
stayed up through much of the night or napped in plastic chairs while on
stand-by for the flight from BIAP. I
also went to dinner at the Crowne Plaza's Sakura restaurant. At 11:00 p.m., "Omar" took me to Kuwait's
commercial airport, which is just ten minutes or so from the Crowne Plaza, and
made sure that I got to the right counter and through immigration.
My
return flight from Frankfurt arrived at 8:00 p.m. two weeks later. The process played out pretty much in reverse,
with a new twist which must have been instituted because of the H1N1 ("swine")
flu threat. During the flight, I
received and filled out a Kuwaiti Ministry of Health "Health Surveillance
Card.
Once we were in the arrivals
terminal, three or four people dressed in medical gowns and wearing face masks
used an instrument like a penlight evidently to take our temperatures. Then, when we tried to pass through
immigration control, we were waved back to a long line to the right of the
glass doors into the area. At the head
of the line, two officials placed a "Port H. Office Kuwait Air Port" stamp on
the Health Surveillance Card and retained two copies.
On
my second try, the immigration officer took a quick look at the Health
Surveillance Card, but did not keep it.
On my departure, the expediter was very insistent that I enter using
only my CAC, so, when the immigration officer also asked to see my passport, I
didn't give it to him but passed over a form that the Kuwait ISU had e-mailed
to me documenting what CACs can be used for entry. The immigration officer must have required
the passport just to be able to enter my birth date, but he was satisfied to
have me write it down for him. I
probably could have given him my passport, but I didn't want to risk having him
automatically stamp it, since I was told that would mean I would need to get a
visa or pay a steep fine for every day without it.
Once
I retrieved my luggage, I saw someone from the FDC holding up a sign with DOS
USMI (for "Department of State U.S. Mission Iraq") on it and we left for the
Crowne Plaza. I was taken to the third
floor FDC lounge, and, since we would depart for Ali Al-Salem in the middle of
the night, I surfed the internet and napped for the few hours before
departure. Since passengers are required
to check in several hours before departure, which is set based on the earliest
possible departure of the flight, passengers en route to BIAP are normally at
Ali Al-Salem in the wee hours of the morning.
Upon arrival at Ali Al-Salem, in another new procedure, we got off the
bus and waited in an adjacent tent while the base security personnel inspected
our carry-on luggage, which we were required to leave on the bus. I knew several people on the flight, so we
bought "breakfast" at McDonalds (in my case, a Big Mac) and had coffee from the
Green Bean. We didn't have anything to
do except wait, since the FDC employee took our CACs and passports to check us
in and our luggage was taken directly from the Crowne Plaza to be palletized
for loading. The return flight arrangements
proceeded smoothly and I was back at the Embassy by noon.
I
asked several people whether staying at Ali Al-Salem's LSA might be preferable
to staying at the Crowne Plaza's FDC lounge, but received the uniform reply
that the Crowne Plaza was preferable. Other
travelers were also enthusiastic about the Crowne Plaza's fitness center (which
I didn't check out). I didn't think the
answer was so obvious, however. The LSA
evidently has a tent with cots and Tent One also has a large lounge area with
easy chairs and a TV. The Crowne Plaza FDC
lounges felt rather crowded, however, and the one or two internet terminals
seemed inadequate. Ali Al-Salem, on the
other hand, has an internet cafe. Sure,
one has to pay to get connected, but there's no wait and no one is hanging over
your shoulder waiting for a turn. Ali
Al-Salem also has a DFAC and the range of other concessionaires providing food
-- McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Subway, Green Bean, etc. Granted, the Crowne Plaza is also a convention
center, so it has seven restaurants on the grounds, but I paid $50 for a
mediocre dinner at the Sakura Restaurant, which doesn't compare favorably to a
free dinner at the DFAC. (The Crowne
Plaza's other restaurants offer French, Italian, Lebanese, and Iranian cuisine,
seafood, steak, and an international buffet.
I hear that the Ribeye Steakhouse and the Al Ahmadi International
Restaurant, with the buffet, are the best value.) The Crowne Plaza also seemed relatively
isolated and not close to other attractions.
Finally, getting to the commercial airport early and waiting is probably
not advisable, although the airport does have a range of fast food restaurants
before passing through immigration control to the departure gates but little
else to do.