Between the screams of needy children, and the louder more aggressive screams of their parents, it’s easy to begin to lose your grip on sanity as you walk through the check-in gates of an airport. Often, you require special skill to navigate between those who feel it is both normal, and safe, to push luggage into the path of oncoming pedestrians, or indeed, those slightly over-size folk who prefer to step into your path at the last second, then feign annoyance when you walk straight into them.
I like to think of myself as well travelled, there are many places in the world that I can check off that big list of places to see before you die; some nice, others… not so nice. What has always struck me, is the nature of people within airports - it really doesn’t matter which airport it is, where in the world it’s located, or the time of day. As long as there are flights outbound, chaos will ensue. We may be a people of technology, however, as yet, I have found none capable of mitigating the way people turn as soon as they need to be somewhere. I could describe the atmosphere as akin to ants, moving great swathes of food back to the nest, sadly, it really isn’t that civilized, or for that matter, organized. Perhaps describing it as a thousands of soldiers, all of which are fighting in a great war with each other, and all on opposing sides to each other meeting in a neutral place. None of them really know how to respond to each other - there are looks exchanged, glancing blows as they pass, and raised voices. Sometimes, there’s even overt violence, though to this day, I -luckily- haven’t witnessed this.
If you manage to get through check-in safely, you’re then presented with the security area, which is designed to prevent terrorism, ostensibly. So far, the only thing I’ve seen security do is serve to further enrage the people being herded into lanes to be probed. Most of these people are either sadly inexperienced as to the workings of wholesale travel, and the “security” that comes with it, are first time travellers, or perhaps wish to cause themselves as much pain as possible.
Personally, I have a system, I check-in, having done that successfully and offloaded my checked baggage, I then head outside for a final cigarette, as these days most airports no longer have a sealed smoking room. This also gives me a few moments to compose myself, and prepare for the sensory onslaught that is to come. As I walk back in, towards departures, I begin my preparations for a smooth trip through security - I _always_ take hand luggage, whether I need it or not, it is essential for an easy ride through security. Now, obviously, there are exceptions to this rule, if for instance I’m travelling with one bag, and all I have apart from that is my wallet, passport, boarding-pass and cigarettes, then I’ll just walk through, throw that into one of their boxes, and collect it on the otherside. However, looking around me - people watching, if you will - I have counted 1 (ONE) person so far who is in that situation of having no hand baggage. Most people have a decently sized bag, a jacket or heavy coat, a book, a newspaper, a drink … the list goes on ad nauseum. The jacket is mistake #1 for these people. There is absolutely no conceivable reason on earth - barring the extreme, of say, the airport being evacuated due to fire, or “terrorism” - that you would require or wish to have your coat with you inside an airport. You don’t need it to check-in, you don’t need it while waiting in the departure lounge, you certainly don’t need it on the flight - and this raises another pet hate of mine. If you have your damn coat on the flight, wear it. Don’t put the fucking thing in the overhead luggage compartment. You chose to bring it, you bloody live with it, you don’t take up space by shoving it in there like it’s an extra piece of hand baggage. -, and I garuntee (money back, statutory rights not affected) that you won’t need it before you’ve collected your checked-baggage at the other end. So, WHY exactly do they all insist on bringing it with them? Why not put it inside that oversized suitcase which contains every possesion you own, that you’ve already paid excess weight charges on, and STOP carrying it around the departure lounge as if it were some shield against demons. Anyway, enough ranting about jackets, lets get back on topic. Security. As I’m walking towards security, I’m removing things from my pockets, and throwing them into my hand baggage, by the time I’ve done that, I’ll be just about at the entrance to the security area, and will be removing my belt - if I have one -, along with my coat, if god forbid I couldn’t fit it into my checked-luggage (usually in this circumstance, I’ll buy one in whatever city I’m flying to, and forgo taking a smelly jacket with me. If I have boots or shoes with metal in them, those come off too, and when I get to the conveyor, I neatly place what I have on it, and then step through the metal detector. As of today, I belive I’m about 50 for 50 clear step-throughs - a perfect score. Sure, there have been a few occasions where I’ve been asked ‘do you have a laptop in there?’ or ‘what’s that odd looking object?’, but I’ve never had my bag torn apart, and I’ve never been wanded. There really isn’t some kind of secret to it, it’s all about being prepared, and equally, about body language.
Let me put it another way; let’s take Joe Public as an example - he’s that same person who has his large hand baggage that should really have been checked and is going to cause issues for the flight attendaants when they attempt to close the overhead compartment, he also has his book, his bottle of soda, a newspaper, and of course, his coat. At this point, he’ll be wearing his coat. Usually, though not always, he’ll be with his wife or girlfriend, and they’ll be in the queue waiting for the security queue to go down and for it to become ‘their turn’. The security office will hand them a small container, and ask them to place their belongings into it. Enter stage left mistake #1. At this point, there is a delay of about 2 minutes, while Joe Public and his partner take their coats off, attempt to empty their pockets - they’ll miss something, I garuntee it -, and then begin forcing all of this into one of the small boxes. During this time, both begin to sweat profusely, partly because of everything they’re having to do, and mostly because they’re embarrassed that they’re now the same as the people they were so vocally whining about 5 minutes previously.
The raises two questions to the security folk - #1 What was the reason that they ignored all of the instructions telling them to remove all their belongs BEFORE getting to the desk, and #2 Why are they sweating, do they have something to hide?
At this point, it’s game over, Joe Public steps through the metal detector, and the item he forgot to remove sounds it. He sweats even more, looks sheepish and gets taken away for a wanding, or, if he’s really lucky, a body cavity search. His partner steps through, gets cleared for that, but now has to deal with the slew of questions about objects in the hand baggage and ‘would you mind if we take a look in that bag sir/madam?’. Panic ensues as they realize their significant other is about to be anally abused by a mean looking guy who doesn’t understand the word ‘lube’, and what could have been a very simple process has descended into a world of pain and chaos.
Back to where I started, once you’re finally through security, you arrive at the departure lounge. The whole place is built especially to screw with your head - again, it doesn’t matter which airport it is, they’re all exactly the same. The TV’s that tell you which gate you need to get to for your flight are all strategically placed so that you cannot see them from any sitting position - this encourages churn, and means that people exchange the low number of seats that are available, rather than all just sitting down and never moving. This also causes the interesting side effect of mass exodus within a relatively quiet area about once every 30 minutes. I put it to anyone, next time you fly, arrive a few hours early, and go sit in the departure lounge and watch what happens. Without fail, you’ll get this odd movement pattern, where everyone will ignore the first call for their flight - because they can’t see it -, then suddenly, half the seated people will stand and begin fighting their way towards the TV screens to figure out what gate they need to be at, before charging like stampeding bulls towards whichever gate it turned out to be. Everything could be so much more civilized, if airports provided better information-transfer mechanisms. Though, that said, with the seemingly low IQs of most of the people who form that stampede, and fail their security checks, I’d be suprised if it actually made much of a difference. On a completely different, but very mean closing sidenote, I hope they charged the woman sat diagonally across from me for the two seats she’s going to use up on whatever flight she’s taking.