The monthly blog from Andrew Sharp, Director General of IARO - December issue

• Delays going through airports are bad news. They happen a lot.

  You can check-in on line to avoid the check-in desk queue. Or you can use the increasingly sophisticated self-service kiosks. I actually managed to use one of these to obtain my own self-service bag-tag in Toronto recently, and affixed it sufficiently accurately for the bag to arrive safely at Heathrow on the same flight as me!

  However, if you have hold baggage, you still have to queue for the bag drop (no longer called “Fast bag drop” at many airports!). You then have to queue for security checks – sometimes plural, because some airports check you and your hand baggage in one process and, just when you thought you could head for the queue at the duty-free shop, they stop you and get you to take your shoes off! Once through that hassle, you often have to queue for a subsidiary checkpoint at the gate, wait in the jetway to get onto the plane, then have similar problems at your destination.

  Some of these delays are due to someone somewhere in the aviation or security industry. These people are doing their job, often with a limited budget and limited space, and doing their best to make sure that everyone gets safely to their destination. Some can be regarded as a necessary evil.

  Other delays are due to passengers – not people like you and me, of course, but other people!

  I was in a queue for screening at Gatwick recently and the lines were horrendous. It took exactly 20 minutes – including the 2 minute silence for Armistice Day – from joining a queue to getting through the process. Despite the enormous queue behind her, one lady some distance in front of me, on being told she couldn’t take a bottle of water through, drank the lot on the spot before throwing the bottle away. Drinking a third of a litre of water took some time – while the entire queue behind her stood and waited. Mind you, that’s better than one story – which might be true – of the guy who tried the same trick with a litre bottle of vodka!

  It’s also pretty common for people to wait in those snaky lines passing numerous signs or TV screens telling them to take off their jackets and take lap-tops out of bags – and get to the front of the queue and say, “Oh, do I have to take my jacket off? And yes, I do have a lap-top buried in the depths of my bag - do I need to take that out too?”. Just watch next time you go through security – what percentage of the time are the security arches actually in use?

  And once on aircraft, people happily stand in the aisle loading their hand baggage into the overhead bins – while a whole plane-full of people fumes on the jetway waiting to get on. Stand out of the way, please!

  Airlines have experimented with quick ways to board passengers – by row numbers from the back, windows first then middle seats then aisle seats. Has anyone tried unloading the plane by asking people without wheeled cases to de-plane first? Probably not – there’d probably be a riot, even though it’s those guys who take time to unload their bags from the bins!

  There are irritating delays to passengers going through airports. Some are the unavoidable fault of the system: some are the avoidable fault of the system. But too many are the avoidable fault of thoughtless passengers.

  I hope you enjoyed reading this: I look forward to your feedback. Andrew  

  

  16 Dec 2009

  Posted by: Andrew Sharp