Air travel: Is it all worth it?

I recently travelled to JFK from Heathrow. When I say recently, specifically speaking it was the day a man drove his car into Glasgow Terminal 2 and car bombs were discovered in London. My early arrival at Heathrow T3 with the intention of doing a spot of duty-free shopping and having something to eat was thus instantly nullified. I was presented with unbearable queues at every juncture – the queue for security stretched the length of the hallway and doubled back on itself, some 600m in total. Every man has his breaking point so I pushed in two thirds of the way down, much to the chagrin of two Australians.

It would be fair to say that each of us was by the time fairly agitated since, with no one to tell us otherwise, it seemed we were all at risk of missing our flights. Upon having our passports checked, a man next to me voiced these concerns. “Everyone’s in the same boat,” he was told. He swore under his breath – not at the BAA representative but at the situation. He was called back. “I will not accept swearing or abusive language at any time.” At that point he was told to wait at the side while the female representative fetched her manager. I watched keenly as the situation unfolded. The man became increasingly twitchy. He was forced to make an apology to the lady and shake her hand, at which point he was escorted to the front of the security queue. As John Cleese once remarked during the infamous Monty Python parrot sketch: “If you want to get anything done in this country you have to complain till you’re blue in the face.”

At security I noticed that passengers were repeatedly let through despite a lack of resolution as to why the scanner alarm was sounding. Beyond security there was… another layer of security, with further passport checks and an opportunity to take our shoes off… again. “My flight says it’s ready for take off!” I exclaimed. “Don’t worry about the shoes then, sir.” So I ran all the way to my gate, unfed and anxious, only to board an almost entirely empty plane. It was another hour and a half before we took off and three hours before I ate anything.
Do not get me wrong: I am not unique, I do not seek a morsel of sympathy, and of course I understand how easy it is to mock a difficult situation where, in fact, people are simply trying to do their jobs. Yet so often one is struck by the sense that the entire situation is a shambles and that the security staff have no strategy but are simply making it up as they go along – and if that’s not the case it is almost certainly the impression. Where was the announcement that none of us were going to miss our flights? That alone would have settled a restless queue. It also seemed crazy that these extra layers of security were essentially performing the same task – it’s akin to being asked the same question five or six times. Surely there is room for asking a better question only once or twice.

I won’t bore you with unnecessary detail as to what happened at JFK, though a two-hour immigration queue followed by a stony-faced inspector rounded off a horrendous trip that was only topped when my return flight a week later was cancelled. It increasingly seems that we are having to pay for our air travel in other than financial ways; we cannot have the good without the bad, the fine wine without the hangover. It does all prompt the question that an increasing number of travellers are posing: ‘Is it all worth it?’

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