I travel a lot. Most recently, a weekend trip to Las Vegas to reconvene with the college guys. It was a three-day, two-night trip, but I didn’t have any luggage big enough to carry a suit yet small enough to fit carry-on.
I really don’t like being stuck and waiting around. (In fact, I’m sure my penchant for line cutting is fairly well documented.) Sometimes, it’s unavoidable. Good luck sorting through the trainwreck disaster they call airport security (we couldn’t call it a “planewreck disaster,” could we, TSA?). And the last ten minutes of sitting in the plane while it’s taxiing are totally unbearable.
Sometimes, maybe, the wait can be camouflaged.
I’m consistently delighted whenever I arrive at baggage claim and my bags are already there, ready for me to go. This happens…never. Maybe “consistently” was the wrong word. I doubt very much that we can make the baggage people work faster. It’s a bottleneck, much like forcing every passenger to remove their shoes, belts, and laptops.
Here’s an idea, perhaps: Why not design your airport so that it takes 15 minutes longer for me to walk to the baggage claim area?
- Walking, moving, progressing forward is not the same (and not nearly as bad) as waiting and standing still. The lady behind the counter announces “now boarding rows 1-6,” and folks jump out of their chairs to get in the next line. Passengers from rows 7-12 even start to shuffle into jockeying position for the next call. Progress. People like that. Why? The plane’s not going to take off any sooner. Doesn’t matter. Forward motion. (An abstract example: think about any website that has a loading screen, and how pleasing it is to watch the little bar progress from 0 to 100%.)
- It’s going to take just as long to get out to the street from the airplane, though more time is spent walking than waiting. What are you going to do? Complain about the airport because it’s too huge? Some nerve it has! If you gripe about anything, maybe it’s about indulging in that one last doughnut. More likely, you just move.
- Ta-da! There are your bags, already there for you on the carousel. You’re ready to hit the streets. Didn’t even have to wait a minute.