At the Mérida international airport in the Yucatan, a Danish passenger from Spain showed up after 3 months of vacation to check in for his Aeroméxico flight, the first leg of his journey home.
However Aeroméxico sought to charge him 2,000 MXN to check his bag. And he was out of money. He couldn’t fly, and didn’t have money for a new ticket either.
The man was supposed to fly Mérida to Mexico City to Havana to Madrid, with Havana – Madrid on a separate ticket he says is valid until January 11. And he needed to get there before that. But he was stuck.
- He became a familiar presence in the terminal – described as peaceful, largely silent, sitting for long stretches. He gets up for bathroom breaks, walks the corridors then returns.
- He was repeated questioned nad asked for documents. He was allowed to remain because he wasn’t causing problems.
- Airport staff nicknamed him “Tom Hanks danés” in a reference to The Terminal.
Early stories described his stay as “almost two months” at the airport. But it was just five days. After seeing the viral posts, a traveler spoke with him and arranged flights for the next day at a cost of ~ $334.
Getting stuck in the airport for days doesn’t happen every day, but isn’t uncommon either.
- Five Russians were stranded at Seoul Incheon for months after fleeing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
- A man was arrested after showing fake credentials following living near Chicago O’Hare gate F12 for three months in late 2020. He was afraid of catching Covid-19 so abandoned his flight connection, though the aircraft cabin would presumably have been safer than the airport terminal.
- Other cases during the pandemic include a man who walked out of the Hong Kong airport after spending 3 months in transit, and several passengers who were stuck living in airports because borders were shut.
- And there was the man who lived at the airport because he couldn’t afford the change fee on his ticket
Of course, the most famous person to live in an airport – and the one for whom this traveler in Mexico was nicknamed – was Mehran Karimi Nasseri, memorialized in the Tom Hanks film The Terminal. \
The man spent 18 years living in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport’s terminal 1. He reported being kicked out of Iran for protesting the Shah, and eventually granted refugee status in Belgium. He moved to the UK, but lost his papers claiming his briefcase was stolen. When he returned to Britain border officials refused his entry, and sent him back on a flight to Paris where he had come from.
Nasseri was offered residence in France and in Belgium, but wouldn’t sign papers agreeing to it because those listed him as being Iranian and he wanted to be a UK citizen where he says his father is from, and because he wanted the documents to reflect the name Sir Alfred Mehran.
Other similar cases include Ahmed Kannan, who spent four months in the Kuala Lumpur airport in 2013. He flew to Turkey without a visa and had his passport confiscated. He had been overstayed his Malaysian visa and was inadmissable there. And Edward Snowden spent 39 days in the Moscow-Sheremetyevo airport before being granted temporary asylum. His U.S. passport had been revoked while enroute to Russia.
For a thoughtful, carefully-crafted experience in the new year, consider Delta.