As I travel by air a lot. I’m now starting to wonder why it has become so stressful?
Firstly, I can only assume that it to do with the time of day or the season such as peak holiday times. But when you look closer you will find that it’s the way you are treated at the airport and by the airlines.
when you arrive at the airport and you try to check in at one of the machines that are supposed to make life easier and they don’t work for some bizarre reason you start to get stressed. Then its the check in desk, usually the people there are not to bad but you can get the odd one that has got out of bed the wrong side that morning and because that person didn’t want to come to work the are going to make everyone’s life a misery. Or there is a problem with the Aircraft itself, and the usual excuse is the flight has been delayed for operational reasons. This happened to me recently, I was traveling to Amsterdam and when I got to the airport and checked my email I discovered that my flight had been delayed “for operational reasons” I received the email at 1am when I was driving to the airport. So, I waited in the queue to go to the check in desk as I had a connecting flight. I was informed by the person at check in that they had only just found out about it, and an aircraft was flying in with the spare part for the unserviceable aircraft. when I heard this I asked how can an airline that is classed as a national carrier not have any spares at the locations it fly’s to every day and how come that a spare aircraft was not sent earlier?. The only answer I got was a shrug of the shoulders and “I don’t know ” My only thoughts were how long did the engineer know that the aircraft was unserviceable as I was emailed at 1am and the original flight take off was 6:10 am? why didn’t they have the correct part at the airport? And prior planning Prevents pee poor performance.
Next there is the security check. In my years of extensive travel by air I have seen some people degraded by security staff. There was an instance at a UK airport where an old woman was sent back and forth through the metal detector a total of seven times because she had a double hip replacement. She was nearly in tears after telling the stroppy security member of staff that she had metal hips, it was only when her husband lost his temper and got the supervisor that this poor woman was finally left to get on. I have had an instance (one of many) where I have felt degraded by these people. My hand luggage was checked, so I asked the person who was doing the checking and swabbing what exactly he was looking for? He didn’t answer just completely ignored me, so when he had finished I asked for the supervisor to come and explain to me why a member of his staff refused to talk to me and why he used the same swab to check the items in my hand luggage and then put it on the machine. The only answer I got was “its for your safety” Well if that’s all they can come up with then its a very poor excuse. I am fully aware of the world we live in today, with the heightened security and attacks going on all over the world. But to treat people like animals goes to far. Common courtesy costs nothing, it seems to me that they just want you to be compliant and do what they say when they say it.
Then there is the departure gate where you have probably had your passport checked for the third or fourth time. Now, you have had this document checked at check in probably at the security check then at immigration and now at the departure gate. Only adding to the stress that you may be feeling at this particular point. they may even want to check your visa yet again even though you have had this checked at yes you’ve guessed it the check in desk and at immigration. Now logic would spring to mind here, that if you have had your visa checked at the check in desk and probably at immigration (Depending where in the world you have departed from) why do they have to check again at the departure gate? it would probably be a good idea to put it into the bar code on your boarding pass that all you visa and other paperwork are in order. Then after all of this then you can finally board the aircraft and get on with your life.
I would be interested to hear from people who have had similar or witnessed the same as me when traveling by air.
Zikomo 