“Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings” (Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr RCAF)
There are probably millions of people aged in their twenties who have flown many times and never felt the magic. Before the new century arrived, almost all air travellers would have felt that frisson at the moment of unstick.
What has changed? That is the question.
For at least two decades now, economy air transport has been far cheaper than it was twenty or 30 years ago. But, Humble Traveller, you sacrifice much for that privilege! Almost certainly far more than you realise, especially if you are less than 30 and have never experienced anything different.
Today, from the moment of clicking into the online booking process to the point of your expulsion into your destination arrivals hall, the total air travel experience feels as if it is designed to humiliate air travellers. There are definite parallels between the way the low cost carriers (LCCs) treat their passengers and the way reality television shows test minor celebrities’ capacity to cope with public acts of debasement for the entertainment of viewers.
But it doesn’t have to be like this! Dear Ryanair (et al), it’s quite possible to deliver the absolute basics of air travel without making passengers feel they they are being punished for their parsimony!
Indeed one of the industry’s extant personalities, Ryanair’s chief exec, Michael O’Leary, almost encourages the impression that he chuckles at the pain he can persuade his passengers to undergo to knock a Euro or two off their fare! They just keep coming, he crows. And he’s right, they do – in ever larger numbers!
Why do passengers accept it?
Consider, Humble Traveller, what you are persuaded to undergo to purchase this flight.
At the website, you choose your departure point and destination, then scan the flights for the best value trip. That done, you decide what baggage – if any – you will check in, and what you may carry on board. Both these choices will add to your fare.
Then select the seat you want. Airlines, of course, are obliged to provide seats, but choosing a specific seat may drive your fare yet higher.
Finally, you are asked whether you want to pay a premium for the privilege of boarding ahead of other passengers. Quite why anyone would want to occupy a cramped seating space for any longer than necessary is not clear, but some people volunteer to pay for it, which adds to the impression that the airline, having successfully captured you, is playing with you like a bored cat.
You may, by now, have paid a total price for your trip that is up to three times the face-value of a luggage-free flight. And you haven’t even made it to the airport.
Airports, once exciting places to visit, with open-sky vistas of aeroplanes doing what aeroplanes do, are now a challenge to reach, hidden within concentric zones of increasing security designed to deter all but the most determined passengers.
Friends or family delivering you to the airport by car are confronted, on approach, with signage directing drivers to specific lanes for short-stay parking, long-stay parking, public transport drop-off lanes, VIP drop-off lanes, private drop-off lanes, all monitored by video-cameras with number-plate recognition software. Don’t dare get into the wrong lane or security men will swarm your vehicle and direct you around the system a second time to collect a second drop-off charge – or at least the fear of it!
Finally, when you drop off your passengers, the terminal entrance is several hundred metres away, with no porterage. Trolleys – if available – are distant.
A particularly awful airport to deliver to is London Gatwick North Terminal. It used to be light and easy, but now the infrastructure surrounding it has burgeoned, and innocent passengers find themselves dropped off in a skyless concrete chasm between the row of multi-storey car-parks and the terminal itself. This underground labyrinth feels like one of those abandoned warehouses in which criminals and cops have their final shoot-out in the movies.
Within this scary underworld the hapless travellers – rapidly abandoned by their driver who fears being charged for exceeding the permitted drop-off duration – are challenged to find a terminal entrance that will, hopefully, deliver them to a well-lit space for check-in.
The relief, when they do make it to the check-in hall, is overwhelming.
But that’s only the first hurdle. Now they have to negotiate the self-service bag-drop and baggage-labelling process, plus hefting 23kg bags onto a raised belt. Heaven help people who are old, frail, or partially sighted, because the airline won’t.
Having dispatched their bags – an act of faith – to god knows where, the travellers submit to robot-managed identity checks followed by security searches. Bags and belongings need to be hefted into trays, laptops separated, valuables exposed to public view, jackets off, watches off, pockets emptied, belts, shoes and spectacles removed, and all this personal kit is travolated away from you into the dark maw of the X-ray machine. Will you see it again, you wonder?
You, meanwhile, have to stand in a scanner arch with your hands held high, then undergo a pat-down check while your shoes are prodded by a hand-held sniffer wand designed to detect explosive traces.
All this is immediately followed by getting dressed again, in public, and recovering and re-packing your scattered possessions.
You have now made it to “airside”.
The assaults on your senses are not yet over. Immediately you are forced along a long and winding path through blindingly floodlit displays of costly bottles of scent, malt whisky, and other non-essentials before making it to the departure concourse, where you are confronted with the information that your flight has not yet been allocated a gate.
In most terminals, at this point, there is still no view of the outside world. There is still no sense that you will soon be “slipping the surly bonds of earth” in your sleek, 21st century version of a magic carpet. Still absolutely zero sense of anticipation.
Suddenly your flight is allocated a stand, and you have ten minutes to walk about a kilometre along blind corridors to a gate lounge which may – if you are lucky – provide a first glimpse of your flying machine.
At this point the boarding charade begins. The passengers all know they have an allocated seat, yet many choose to stand in a queue for the final security check before shuffling slowly down a blind, steeply sloping boarding pier toward the door of an aeroplane they are – seemingly – not permitted to see.
The last act before take-off is stowing bags and getting into a seat row so tightly spaced that, once there, the ability to move any appendage is painfully limited.
Remember, all this suffering has been entirely voluntary on your part. You knew it would be like this, but you chose it. Don’t blame O’Leary!
Or should you?
Yes you should. This has to change. You don’t have to endure this.
The LCCs have made their point, and have delivered cheap flying. We, the passengers, are educated now, and will not demand expensive privileges on the basic A to B service we can reasonably expect.
But the airlines and the airports have now to deliver that service with respect for their customers. They could. It would cost little, and improve business.
For the airlines, that will start with respecting their crews. A happy airline attracts happy customers, and that’s good business.
The airports have more work to do, starting with better design of the passenger spaces from drop-off to boarding. Retail maximisation should not dominate policy. Stressed, bored passengers are not in the mood for spending money en route.
Finally, make use – once again – of the natural glamour of flying to attract people back to the sky, by letting them see the airfield and its activity. Give them space to dream – along with Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee – of “topping the wind-swept heights with easy grace”.
Learmount.com 