i'm aware of the former British colony Guiana, and of the Guyana post-indepence
But Guayana...
who knew?
Regular readers of The Reg will know Peter Moore as the UK techie who was kidnapped by an Iraqi militia in 2007, before spending over two-and-a-half years as a hostage. But Iraq was just one in a succession of foreign postings during Peter's career. He gave us the rundown on his travels before Iraq, and it's not hard to see …
Yeah, tell me about it.
It's supposed to be a "Development charge" which has been going on for about 10 years now. I find it laughable as it's still not much more than a large shed. The majority of the depatures board is populated with choppers destined for oil rigs, with the odd flight from KLM going to AMS, or Flybe ferrying drunk self loading cargo to places where they can get even more drunk.
"Apparently I needed to purchase airport departure tax, something that is actually very common in countries outside of Western civilisation."
Guess what, it is also "very common"¹ in "Western civilisation". Guess what about half of the £30-£60 tax that you paid for your £1 flight is?
All that it happens is that usually around here it's included in the final ticket price and the airline collects that money on your behalf to give it to the airport operator. In the event of a passenger failing to take his flight for whatever reason, that money is never returned unless the pax asks for it back, which in 99% of cases doesn't happen because the pax does not know he's entitled to it, not being part of the ticket (which in many cases will be non-refundable, but that never affects the status of airport tax).
¹ For "universal" values of "very common".
Fairly sure a guy I know has a few tales to tell. At a job interview I had at for the company he worked for I was told by the MD that part of the reason they paid so well was due to the risk of being shot at. Some of the employees had to leave Rwanda rather quickly, it was described as driving through the fence at the airport at high speed to intercept the plane that was already starting to leave while being shot at by rebels that were chasing them. The actual job involved setting up satellite uplinks ready for news crews in what could only be described as prospective war zones.
(It's also at this point that due to not remembering names properly I discover that a friend of mine from the old afp days passed away earlier this year, RIP Rocky, at least pTerry will have you for company)