The Intolerant Flier

These days I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time flying to different locations as part of my job.  I'm frequently going to Taiwan. Occasionally to Singapore.  I have new projects in Cebu and Davao and the only way to get there is by flying. Well that's not strictly true, I could go by jeepney and ferry but I'd spend all my time travelling and not actually doing any work. And the rate that ferries sink in the Philippines means there's a good possibility I wouldn't arrive at all.

Now I know to some this might sound somewhat glamorous being part of the jet-set but take it from me, for the most part it's an ordeal.

Here's my top ten list of things I dislike most and which drive me to distraction and leads me to dread flying.  Note that and it's mostly down to my fellow travellers and not the physical flying itself. Sorry if this sounds like a rant but that's because it is!

1.  Time Taken to Check-In.

Why does it only ever take me a few minutes to check-in but for most others it seems to take an age. What the hell can they do wrong or find to do that takes so long? What could be simpler?  Tickets and passport handed over in return for a boarding pass.  Just what is it that takes others so long?

2.  Baggage Blaggers.

Actually, I can partly answer (1) myself.  It's those that turn up with 20 kg of baggage for a budget airline flight when they either paid for nothing or think all baggage is included in the ticket like a regular airline.  They then argue/plead/sulk/abuse the check-in clerk and try to scam their bags onto the flight without having to pay, all the while the queue to check-in is stationary and getting forever longer.  Me?  I'd send them away and tell them to sort it out and then go to the back of the queue.  I've even seen baggage blaggers being told their check-in bags are too heavy and so in front of the check-in desk (thus stopping anyone else getting to check-in) they've pulled everything out and piled it into their hand carry (which was already bigger than my check-in bag) and the airline staff say nothing. Also see (4) below.

3.  Late Arrivals Jumping the Queues. 

Here's something that really irks me: those that turn up late at the airport get moved to the front of the security/immigration queue to avoid missing their flight. Whilst I would accept that there might be the occasional genuine case who has mitigating reasons for being late, and for them I suppose an allowance should be made, but it seems to me it's rapidly becoming a travel plan to turn up late simply to avoid the queues, whilst all those who are actually able to plan their life and get to the airport on time stand there like lemons like they have nothing better to do.

4.  Hand Baggage Blaggers

Because Budget airlines charge for check in baggage it results in certain individuals thinking that it's acceptable to have 3 carry on bags (plus laptop, plus camera, plus iPad, plus pillow, plus duty frees) weighing more than than the total allowance you can actually pay for and taking them on for free.  Sometimes the bags are so heavy they have trouble actually lifting them into the overhead lockers. Now, if the rules were applied equally I wouldn't mind but being British and having a reasonable understanding of fair play I check my bags in  (i.e. pay), whereas a large chunk of those flying seem to think they are exempt.  Occasionally the airline does take over-sized/over weight cases off travellers at the gate and place them in the hold but effectively the traveller is still getting a free baggage allowance.  How's that fair?

5.  Baggage Handlers.

'Nuff said.  Up there with traffic wardens, lawyers and estate agents.

6.  Security Queue Dawdlers.

These days there's the added ordeal of the security check queue. Okay, some might argue that it's a necessary evil. I might argue it's wholly a waste of time and effort but there it is. It reminds me of Jews being processed and sent off to a concentration camp. Now I know some will be offended by the analogy but I cannot think of anything that matches the process better.  The being made to stand in line; the threats not to question what or why it's happening; the meekness of not standing up against this processing; the threatening security; permitting the humiliation of being partially stripped; being bodily and intimately searched and having all your personal possessions rifled though by a stranger in front of other strangers.  There are real similarities.

However, if this isn't bad enough, what makes it worse is you know you're going to have to take your shoes off.  You know you're going to have to take your laptop out of your bag. You know you're going to have to remove your belt. You know you're going to have to remove all metallic objects and put them through the scanner, so why oh why do some people wait to do all this only once they've reached the scanner.  They just stand there and start to do all their preparations like they have alllllllllllllll the time in the world whilst everyone else has to wait for them whilst they try to decide whether to put their mobile phone in the same tray as their shoes or should they get another tray.  Or put their phone in their bag. Then fiddle about getting their loose change out of their pockets. Then ask security if they need to take out their laptop. At time like this I imagine I have a blow pipe with poisonous darts so I can shoot them in the neck. Morons.

 7.  Reclining Seat Etiquette.

Listen pal, I'm already sitting here with my legs at nearly quarter to three because I'm on a flight with seats designed to carry Douglas Bader and Oscar Pistorius and if you think it's acceptable for you to fully recline your seat on a 60 minute flight so you can sleep in the middle of the day then understand, that it's okay by me, but every couple of minutes I'm going to change position and stick my knobbly knee in your back just as you start to nod off, you selfish twat.

8.  Mobile Phones.

Are mobile phones a risk to flights or not?  Let's make our minds up about this, can we?  Here in Asia I hear phones going off long before the plane has even got near to the runway.  I've even heard people having a conversion as the plane comes in to land, oblivious to the supposed safety of everyone else.

9.  Seat Belts.

There's a cacophony of clipping and clunking of seat belts being released the second, no the millisecond the flight touches down.  Really, taking off your seat belt that soon is meant to achieve what?

10.  First off the Plane.

I can understand wanting to be off the plane first.  No, I really can.  I want to be at the front of the immigration queue so I don't have to stand around whilst you faff about wondering where your landing card is or deciding you haven't had enough time to fill it out when it has handed to you during the flight and then piss about filling it in at the passport control window rather than being sent to the back of the queue like you should be.

No, what REALLY irks me (and I'm struggling not to use expletives here) are those that fight to get off the plane first then once they're on the jet bridge (also called the jetway, loading bridge, aerobridge/airbridge, air jetty, portal, passenger walkway or passenger boarding bridge or call it what you will) make sure they take up the WHOLE damned width of the walkway whilst walking at the speed of a sailing stone and gawping into their mobile phone.  Treading on their heels seems to work a treat.

11.  Hogging the Travelator.

There are those who are so tired from sitting on a plane for several hours that they must stand on the travelator.  Fine, but GET OUT OF MY WAY and don't look at me like I've just murdered your first born if I ask you to move to let me pass, space wasters.

12.  The Baggage Carousel.

Why do people feel the need to stand, with baggage trolley at their side, right at the edge of the carousel, thus blocking anyone else's access to it?  Stand back you imbecile.  Your bag might be the last one out (especially if the baggage handlers are rifling through it - see item 4 above) and standing there blocking others getting to their bags isn't going to make yours come out faster, you pillock.

13.  Queues.

Why all the queues at check-in?  Immigration?  Security?  Most airports need to take a leaf out of airport set up in Singapore.  There's hardly ever a queue.  If they can do it, why can't other airports?

Honourable Mention

Not so long ago I passed through security at London's Heathrow Airport.  Not content with irradiating my bags and belongings in the scanner and carrying out a search that bordered on being more probing than my last prostate examination, the couldn't-care-less, insouciant, I'm-only-doing-my-job security staff (and I use the term staff very, very loosely) then decided to pull ALL my belongings out of my bag, which happened to be mostly camera kit.  Clearly not photographers they asked me what each item was.  I could have told them that my light meter was a light sabre and that the folding camera was a time machine and I swear they wouldn't  have known the difference, so what was the point?  If I were a terrorist carrying a gun modified to look like a camera was I about to say 'fair cop guv, you've got me bang to rights, that's a 9mm browning automatic modified to look like a Polaroid 110b converted to 4x5 format'.  Clueless. And oh so utterly pointless.

Having said that, I thought I was pretty much aware of what I could or could not hand carry but these people (and I also use the word 'people' very loosely) are on the ball.  Included in my camera kit was a little bubble spirit level made of plastic that sits in the flash hotshoe of the camera.  Here's and example what it looks like:

But that's not allowed because it contains FLUID.  It was promptly removed from my bag and the offending item placed into a clear plastic bag and given back to me, so if it had contained pure nitroglycerin I can only conclude that the plastic bag would have contained the blast and saved the plane.  Hooray.  I felt so much safer.

The more astute of you will have noticed that I call this my top ten list and there are actually 13+1 items. The problem is I just couldn't stop at 10.