Arrival
I nearly fell for it … nearly. All those scare stories of people stuck in queues for hours because machines weren’t working. The evidence was right there in front of my eyes. Yes, there were banks of biometric scanners. However, few of them had a green light around them to show they were operational. Some were red, most were grey. Around Andy and I, many fellow passengers behaved like rabbits caught in the headlights, scurrying from one machine to another, randomly hitting buttons as they went. We took a few seconds to stand, survey the area, and think. Then a harried-looking man turned to us and gasped, ‘People have been stuck in here for eight hours you know.’
Andy looked over his shoulder at the scanner he’d just abandoned. ‘Isn’t that your picture on that scanner?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he replied, sounding a tad defensive.
‘Well, it looks a lot like you,’ Andy countered.
‘Does it?’ The man turned and checked the image. ‘Hmm, so it does.’
He was about to return to the machine when his wife called him away … to bugger up yet another scanner. It was at this point we realised the machines weren’t the problem, it was some of the people trying to use them.
We reassessed the scanners with no green lights. Nearly all displayed half-answered questions on their screens. We picked one, cancelled the operation, and started from scratch, answering questions and doing exactly as instructed by onscreen prompts. Within a few moments, the procedure was over.
Next, we headed for the ePassport gates. Some were clogged up as passengers attempted to unsuccessfully negotiate them – not looking at the screen, not standing in the right spot. Watching people struggle with these drives me crazy every time I pass through any airport that uses them. Sure, people need time to adjust to new technology. Except this isn’t new technology. E-gates were introduced to Britain in 2008. The first time we encountered them was in 2011.
We chose one that wasn’t clogged up and sailed through to face the final hurdle, an officer in a booth. As most people were still scuttling about at the scanners or at the ePassport booths, there wasn’t a queue. The officer stamped our passports and that was that. We were through in less than thirty minutes after we touched down. When we reached baggage reclaim, there were few people from our flight waiting for their bags. Presumably, many were still stuck in the system.
Departure
Having sailed through on arrival, we half-expected to get caught in long queues on departure (a Wednesday afternoon). The line for Ryanair check-in moved at a steady pace, only slowing whenever people at the start of the queue didn’t respond to being called to a desk. How can anyone stand in a queue for thirty minutes or more then not be ready to move when it’s their turn?
Then we were seamlessly through the scanners – no queues – and security. Still, the ‘B’ that keeps on giving meant we had to negotiate an extra hurdle to get to the departure lounges for non-EU passengers. Again, no problem. We arrived at the airport just over two hours before our flight time and were settled in chairs in the departure lounge an hour before departure. Even then, there were some who tried their very best to miss their flight. Our gate (Bristol) was right beside the one for Gatwick. When both lines formed, they were in touching distance of each other. The Gatwick flight boarded first. When there was nobody left to board, gate staff shouted for remaining passengers, loudly and continuously. Nobody responded. When our flight started to board, a couple in the Bristol queue were re-directed to the Gatwick gate. For fifteen minutes or so they’d been standing right beside staff yelling, ‘Anyone for Gatwick?’ and, for some reason only they can explain, ignored the calls.
Be careful what you wish for
I have no doubt we got lucky on both occasions. However, if what we witnessed other passengers doing or, more accurately, not doing, was multiplied by several flights arriving at the same time, I can easily see why there are chaotic scenes and lengthy queues at airports. Passenger contribution to this chaos is something I rarely see mentioned in social media posts. Whenever it is referenced, it’s generally dismissed, or countered with, as I saw recently, ‘How are we supposed to know how to use them? Nobody has taught us. There should be staff there to help.’ There were staff there, but it’s unrealistic to expect an airport in another European destination to employ and deploy hordes of workers just to shepherd British passengers, especially as, statistically, many of these passengers voted for these additional steps.
