…are of course one of the worst and evil habitats in this world. treating passengers like cattle during the entire process of boarding and exiting the plane (let’s not skip the “joyful” stage of buying a ticket, let alone attempting to modify it later) has become - generally - a new standard today.
a few months ago I had the opportunity to fly back and forth in Poland on two different days - Monday and Wednesday. on Monday, security screening team couldn’t handle the onslaught of people coming in, so my hand baggage was scanned VERY briefly and team was actually urging me to stop blocking the doorway. there were many people whose baggage was even checked even more superficially - or not at all (despite the lack of cards confirming their air crew status they were allowed to skip the gates totally). On Wednesday, on the other hand, my backpack was completely undressed, including all the individual cables being pulled out. then finally gate securty agent asked me to start the computer and iPad. to my questions about the difference from Monday behavior, he could not give any meaningful answer except that “it is all through the European Union” and that “I am not interested, I have my duties”. I immediately felt better and safer as a passenger…
the only invigorating comments in the whole discussion about the friendliness of airlines for their customers are those that show how inept and pathetic attempts to maintain the so-called “security” by various teams at airports. you don’t have to launch Google and search for it - I have had the opportunity, many times, through my own oversights and mistakes, to fly to London with a big Phillips screwdriver, penknife and other elements that could be used to start mass killing on board. in most cases, I only became aware of my mistake in the hotel by unpacking my backpack - or at Heathrow, trying to return to the country with strange items for hand luggage.
and don’t let me even start with how annoying it is to give my fingerprints and retina photos to incompetent and underinvested US agencies…
i’ve found today interesting patent to increase “packing” efficiency of people on board of airplanes.
for small consolation on this, you can take a look at the short flick of people boarding the plane. of course the one everyone uses is the worst and slowest. why is that not suprising at all?
why, then, why, airlines and people working for them, do not really try to do everything so that we can remember traveling by plane as a great event, or as a last resort - a convenient necessity? i don’t know. but this is just one of many questions that have no good answer. and the obvious (“blind pursuit of profit maximization”) seems … unacceptable.
right? :)