Whine Whine Whine

I flew from LA to Atlanta on the first leg of my trip to the UK to attend Parkex next week. Delta did me the favor of upgrading me and I got to use the “fastrack” lane at security. Not bad considering I flew over 75,000 miles with the company last year. But I’m not complaining, yet.

Delta got me in line, but the TSA kept me there. First there is a rule that says flight crews can jump the line and of course they jump the fastrack line, not the regular line. That added about 30 people in front of me. At least they were polite and actually apologized and thanked me for my patience. Little did they know.

I was about 5^th in line before the scanner. Then things came to a screeching halt. I don’t know why, but in the middle of scanning a very well behaved and put together family, they simply stopped the belt. No repair man called, no “whoops” sorry, we are Hving difficulties. It just stopped. The wife and one child were on one side of the scanner, hubby and anther were on the other. And we just waited.

There seemed to be some movement around the display where they look at your bags through the exray, but no one seemed to be able to get things moving. Finally after about 10 minutes the belt started again and we began to move, ever so slowly.

When I finally got through, the original person manning the scanner (who had left and apparently started the problem) returned. He then took a couple of minutes to get “settled” and began gossiping with his opposite number in the next lane. Of course the entire time, the machine was not running.

And the TSA wonders why travellers complain about them and make fun of the way they operate. If there was a problem, a simple “we’ll have it moving in a minute, folks” would have been all that was necessary. But as I suspect, if there was no problem, just a personnel snafu, then the time has come to replace a manager or two. This is absurd.

And have you noticed inconsistencies. In one line they required you to take your Kendall or Sony Reader out of the case like you have to do with your computer, however in the next line they didn’t. What was that all about? I have actually been in lines where I didn’t have to take off my shoes, but in others at the same airport where I did. Gives you a real warm feeling when you think about it. Of course they patted down the granny in the walker. They have a special line for those probably terrorists. She got the complete treatment.

EL AL stops you before you enter the terminal. They have a secret list of “tells” that watchers use to detect suspects before even entering the terminal. Those people are taken aside and politely interviewed by very serious police before being allowed to proceed. The rest move quickly through security and on to the planes. Profiling, absolutely. But then El AL has never had a highjacking or bombing. Hmmmmm.

Oh, and did you ever notice that the waiting line for the baggage check in always ends behind a piller so you can’t see at least three of the check in stations. And the airline always staffs the stations directly behind the piller. That way, each time a station is clear, they have to yell at you because you can’t see anything. Of course there are a dozen unstaffed visible stations all along the wall. However the ones in use are the ones you can’t see. Could they move the line ten feet one way or the other, absolutely? Do they? Never

Sometimes I think that the people who work for the TSA, border security, or who set up the handling of passengers during check in have never stood in their own lines. If they have, they should be fired, and if they haven’t they should get out there and play like tourists. Why is Southwest such a success? The founder and president regularly rode his airline, unannounced, and often helped the staff serve coffee and clean the cabin between flights. He saw problems and caused them to be fixed.

They could also learn a lot by visiting the number two passenger handling airport in the world, Heathrow in the UK or number seven Singapore or Schipol in Amsterdam. Of course they aren’t run by the local government, but by private entities.

Sigh

JVH