Through a complicated and long ordeal, I wound up in the New Delhi airport, trying to make a connection to Chicago (without a Visa). It was a pretty bad trip all around. I’ll tell you about it sometime if you buy me a beer.
While I was there, it occured to me that I didn’t know how safe the airport was. Someone I was visiting with while sitting and waiting mentioned that there were terrorist concerns. (great :rolleyes: )
Does anyone know, roughly how dangerous my predicate was?
Safe compared to what? There are terrorist threats in India but so there are at Heathrow or JFK. You don’t say when this was but I don’t think there are any special concerns at the moment.
Security agencies do declare alerts sometimes…
If Inside the airport,it is quite safe… facilities may not be U.S like. There could be extra checking of luggages and another round of frisking …
If you want to travel to a hotel , you had better ask them to pick you up from airport… so the cabbies cannot fleece you .
When did this happen ?
Most airports have terrorist concerns. I haven’t read anything in the news in the last few months which suggests that there was any particular danger in being in New Delhi airport recently. Merely being in an unknown country isn’t always a cause for concern.
Incidentally, the word you’re looking for is “predicament” rather than “predicate”.
The only airports that regularly fail to meet international safety standards are in Africa, pretty much.
It’d be nice to have a few more details without having to be extorted for your vice of alcohol.
I’ll giver you your beer but it’s going to be an Indian Kingfisher
Why you’d want one of those is beyond me.
I was in New Delhi airport 3 years ago. I had a ticket to fly to Chicago…from Mumbai! No way was I going all the way back there just to fly home. I also didn’t care for the 20+ hour flight from Mumbai nor the 15+ hour flight from Delhi (both non-stop) so I successfully cashed in for a flight to London. How I pulled that off I know not. It was 3am and I was dead tired. And also tired of India and wanted the f*ck out. I planned on spending 6 days in London before going home. Mistake. I hadn’t been there for quite a while and didn’t realize the dollar was already weakening. I was damn near broke after 2 days and had to bail. I only had like $40U.S. and a credit card. Checked in way late at Heathrow and they stuck me in first class on an economy ticket! (British Airways). 
But I digress.
Delhi airport can seem a bit rustic for a yankee, but I’ve seen worse. I found Mumbai to be worse, but I’ve seen worse than that. I think you’re fairly safe in both. YMMV on the definition of “fairly”.
When you say you had no visa, do you mean for India or for the USA? You usually don’t need a visa if you’re just connecting in a country and won’t be leaving the airport.
I traveled a lot in the Eighties, and it seemed like there was almost always an FAA notice posted at check-in about the Athens, Greece airport not being safe. Dunno if it’s any better nowadays… maybe since the 2004 Olympics?
Part of the fun was that I didn’t have a visa to enter India. The American Air counter is on the OTHER side of customs. So I couldn’t get through customs to get to the American Airlines counter to get the boarding pass to leave. Oh and Ricky Martin was on my flight, so we had to be subject to extra security measures.
I’ve flown intp N.D. twice and both times there seemed to be a lot of troops round about the place.
Whether that was a coincidence I dont know.
The capital city will always be a prime target of terrorists for maximum impact. I guess it will be the same in other countries also.
Being capital city , New Delhi always gets top attention from security agencies also.
Come on - I know Livin’ La Vida Loca was pretty unpleasant, but I think that’s a little unfair on poor Ricky.
As to the OP - I’ve never been to Chicago, but I can’t imagine I’d feel much safer there than in Delhi. :eek:
Airport operations were transferred to the “new” Ellinikon Airport in 2001, which I gather is much safer than the old.
