airports - test the baby for chemicals, frisk the frail old person

Are they as hateful to you as they are to me?
-gouged by flat rate taxi to get there or gouged by parking fees 2x higher than anywhere else
-line ups for self serve baggage tags
-line ups for xrays of bags and person
-imperious uniformed people who enjoy watching more than working
-airport improvement fees- making you pay to be in the building which facilities you won't use
-hostile architecture so no one relaxes unless you buy your way into a rich person lounge

Today I saw 2 mums with babies. They scanned the babies' hands for chemicals. Because you know how bad babies are. The elderly woman was too slow for the uniformed dude. Everyone looks distressed.
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Comments

  • Welcome to Trumpworld....
  • Welcome to Trumpworld....

    At a guess yon shipmate was in Canada..
  • ..or perhaps Ukland.....
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    They're hateful places. TSA Precheck, available in the USA for a fee, usually gets you through security somewhat faster, but I've been in instances where the TSA Precheck line is actually longer than the regular security line.

    I've been pulled aside for additional screening several times at San Diego International Airport -- nowhere else. When I asked why, they said "random selection." I had my laptop PC inspected once at San Diego because "it set off an alarm." It's enough to make me not want to fly into San Diego. It's a six-hour drive from Phoenix, and tiring to do at my age.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Airports are inherently awful.

    You are only there because you want to be somewhere else.

    You are normally tired, underslept, on edge and bored witless even before you have to interact with the tedious farce of ‘Security’.

    If you want a parable of Modern Life, it’s the way you are penned, herded, queued, chivvied, prodded and barked at before being turned out meadows of specious luxuries, gaudy unnecessities and imitation foodstuffs to be robbed blind.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Firenze wrote: »
    Airports are inherently awful.

    You are only there because you want to be somewhere else.

    You are normally tired, underslept, on edge and bored witless even before you have to interact with the tedious farce of ‘Security’.

    If you want a parable of Modern Life, it’s the way you are penned, herded, queued, chivvied, prodded and barked at before being turned out meadows of specious luxuries, gaudy unnecessities and imitation foodstuffs to be robbed blind.

    Wow. This. A Modern Parable, indeed.

    Preach it!
    :grin:

    I loathe airports - fortunately, the only foreign country I'm at all likely to travel to these days is France, and, being 20 minutes' drive from Ebbsfleet International Station, train it is. Two hours to Paris on Eurostar, a short hop across town by RER or taxi, and onto the TGV for Montpellier* - what's not to like?

    Mind you, post-Brexit, and it may well be....ummm.....different......
    :grimace:

    (*a most civilised city, to the environs of which my Sensible Sister has just moved. A few minutes' drive/bus ride from the tram terminus, yet in the midst of beautiful Scenery.)



  • The North East Loon was pulled aside and taken into a wee glass box/office at Frankfurt.

    The interrogation went:
    "You are English?"
    "No, I'm Scottish."
    "That's fine, you can go. Have a good day!"
    Smiles all round.

    (I think that they had spotted the rest of the North East Family lurking and had realised he was travelling as part of a family, rather than as a lone male, but he was quite charmed by the exchange.)

  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    Douglas Adams had it right when he started one of his books with a rant about airports. It stayed in my mind because I first opened that page whilst waiting for a plane at Wellington Airport.

    One of the joys of living in Christchurch is that there are a couple of regular suburban bus services, including the one I catch, which include the airport on their route. In fact last time I flew domestically I managed to get within 8kms of my final destination without paying for any ground transport because of my over 65s card. (This sounds well organised, but it was entirely fortuitous :grin: ).
  • mr cheesy wrote: »
    Welcome to Trumpworld....

    At a guess yon shipmate was in Canada..

    It sure sounds like Pearson Airport in Toronto. (Worse than O'Hare and Heathrow rolled into one.)

  • Yes, of course airports are horrible places. Most of this is caused by the large number of people herded into small spaces to wait, and the natural consequences of that.

    Lines at security are long at times because catering for peak throughput is expensive. The security people mostly hate the long lines too, and are under pressure to keep things moving. This means they get frustrated with anyone who's a bit slow or difficult - it's more or less a consequence of spending all day dealing with people who don't realize that "take everything out of your pockets" applies to them as well as the other people in the queue.

    And of course if you trap people in a small area for a few hours to wait for a plane there's going to be overpriced poor quality food and drink - but this isn't unique to airports, it happens anywhere there's a captive population. We all know what happens when you eliminate competition.

    So yeah, they're pretty miserable places, but I don't think they're unique on that front.
  • The last time I was pulled in and told I had been randomly selected, I laughed in the face of the US Homeland Security goon. He had the grace to blush bright red and got rid of me as fast as he could.
  • I only ever fly through three airports, and two of those are tiny and without security. The third is Glasgow, which is fine. My only gripe was going to the prayer room to say morning prayer via my phone and discovering phones are not permitted and they don't keep any breviaries or prayer books in the room. Security is usually pretty fast.
  • Were you all born after 911?
  • Fair point. 9/11 did lead to 'enhanced' airport security, so no surprise there, possibly.

    Airports still SUCK, though.
  • Which is why I took the train to Montreal and Quebec City.

    Airports are Not Fun. Flying is Not Fun. Travel in general has become Not Fun.

    There's a huge disincentive to go anywhere on account of what OP describes.

    I'm tempted to take a berth on a transatlantic freighter next time I have to cross. Seems like a much more tempting experience.

    AFF
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Were you all born after 911?

    Airports were sucky before 9/11. Sure, security has got more painful, with the show and liquids nonsense, but at least for international flights, I find the difference in experience between pre-9/11 and now to be relatively modest. The security queue does not dominate my airport experience.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    We were in Canada when 9\11 happened - but that was an interval in an otherwise US-based holiday. So we had the problem of getting back to NY state, given that the main crossing of the St Lawrence had several days of back up. Fortunately Kingston ON had a small ferry to Wolf Island, from whence an even tinier ferry ran to the US.

    Then there was the problem of when Albany Airport was going to reopen so that we could get to Chicago. Just before our flight fortunately. But what should have been a 4 hour stopover was something like 17 minutes. We just caught the end of the boarding line for Edinburgh.

    Now, 10 years on, we are wondering how we are going - post Brexit - to get to Lyons in June, and what fresh airport hells await after a chaotic severing.
  • Huia wrote: »
    Douglas Adams had it right when he started one of his books with a rant about airports. It stayed in my mind because I first opened that page whilst waiting for a plane at Wellington Airport.

    One of the joys of living in Christchurch is that there are a couple of regular suburban bus services, including the one I catch, which include the airport on their route. In fact last time I flew domestically I managed to get within 8kms of my final destination without paying for any ground transport because of my over 65s card. (This sounds well organised, but it was entirely fortuitous :grin: ).

    I recall that bus service to the airport well! (During the two and a half weeks I spent visiting my son in Christchurch and seeing New Zealand (and yourself!) I used that bus 9 times in total!! From and to the airport on arrival and departure from UK, twice to and from the airport to pick up/return from dropping off a hire car on 2 weekends, back from the airport when I flew in from Wellington after visiting Arabella, (I had gone there by ferry), and to and from the airport one day to visit the Antarctic Centre nearby. )
  • edited February 2019
    It's both the "hostile architecture"** and the way you're treated. I need drugs.

    **it is a thing
  • It's both the "hostile architecture"** and the way you're treated. I need drugs.

    **it is a thing

    Thank heaven cannabis is legal now ... a good hit before hitting the airport may be Not A Bad Idea.

    LOL

    AFF
  • KyzylKyzyl Shipmate Posts: 29
    Security theater plus extortionate parking fees are why I voluntarily pay more to fly from my local airport (La Crosse) rather than drive to the Big Airport even though the fares aren't that great. When I add on parking plus the stress of negotiating the huge Minneapolis airport it's a wash budget-wise. I am also in the privileged position to afford first class (and I fully recognize that this is a privilege.) Plus, it's nice to see the same person who checks you in at the desk also see you through security and then take your pass at the gate!
  • Firenze wrote: »
    Fortunately Kingston ON had a small ferry to Wolf Island, from whence an even tinier ferry ran to the US.

    I remember that ferry! It's been many years since the few times I've taken it, but I thought it was great fun.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Even before 9/11, when I went through one particular concourse's security at my Home Airport, I would be taken apart Every.Single.Time.

    I finally asked why. (It was a good time to ask; nobody else was in sight.) The security agent looked around cautiously, and said, her voice lowered, "We're not supposed to profile, and you (small, blonde, female, middle-class, middle-aged) don't fit the profile." Basically, by disassembling my carry-ons, they had a pass to take apart someone who did fit the profile.

    It was still massively tedious.

  • I, too, have been thoroughly checked before flying even before 9/11. Reason given: I am wheelchair bound.
  • Sydney Airport excels all others on gratuitous charging by adding a $15 or so surcharge to your train ticket if you dare to get off or on at the International or Domestic railway stations -- welcome to Oz! -- despite the fact they are on the suburban network. Thank you whichever state government signed off on that.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    The seemingly interminable queuing in Security is bad enough (I'm lucky that I very rarely set the machines off), but what really pisses me off about airports (well, Heathrow Terminal 2 to be exact) is the distance between where the plane lands and the passport queues.

    You've just crossed the Atlantic overnight, so you're four hours behind yourself, you've only had aeroplane sleep (which isn't the same as proper sleep) and it's stupid o'clock in the morning. The last thing you need is to have to walk a mile before you can pick up your suitcase and another to get to the minibus that takes you to the car hire place.

    Apart from that, airports are just grand ... :mrgreen:
  • Spare a prayer for the workers, comrades. They have to deal with us weary, stressed and frustrated passengers. Even if one in a hundred gets shirty, that's quite alot of people yelling incoherently at you, shift in shift out.

    They probably have quotas to meet in terms of inspections and wand-waving. They probably have supervisors breathing down their necks. I know I would be looking for a few inoffensive people, and kindly elderly people might actually treat me like a human.

    Outside Australia, the worker's paradise, their wages are probably in the toilet.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Fair point, Simon - I always try and be nice to the security/passport people. Not just because they sometimes have guns, but because they do have a rather thankless task and don't deserve the hassle.
  • Are they as hateful to you as they are to me?
    -gouged by flat rate taxi to get there or gouged by parking fees 2x higher than anywhere else

    Pfft. Liverpool Airport has fees just to drop someone off.
  • Glasgow has an excellent (and not horrendously priced) express bus service that gets you into the city in 20 minutes. I've only used a taxi when travelling with our week-old daughter back from her being born, and even then it was only £15 for the three of us which didn't seem too horrendous.
  • @Climacus many places have this racket. At Stockholm's main airport Aarlanda you can avoid it by taking a @Huia like route on a local bus. @Piglet I'm beginning to wonder if the long walks aren't partly by design to stretch your legs after a long flight. For third-degree security try flying through Mumbai, every passenger gets an advanced patdown. Schiphol security staff seem almost to be enjoying their job and I have to say Charles de Gaulle staff are, surprisingly, pretty good too. Meanwhile getting into Abidjan off the Paris flight is or was hard without parting with lots of cash at customs (pro-tip: arrive on the flight from Accra, Ghana, and walk through unchallenged). @Martin54 I can remember getting off an international flight at a local airport, the briefest of stops at passport control, and walking straight back to the car immediately outside the terminal where there was free, indefinite parking.

    The best way of avoiding all that tedious security screening is simply to fly general aviation. A few months ago I boarded a Piper carrying a large flight case of equipment that wasn't even inspected and myself passed through security unchecked. The other side of that story is that it was a near-identical plane to the one Emiliano Sala went down in, we flew pretty much over the spot where they went down, and I suspect the flight was almost as illegal as his (a 'grey charter') so my insurance would probably have been void.

    Oh and @Bishops Finger you've obviously never been to the dodgy bits of Montpellier (my son lived there for a couple of years). And you should change in Lille, Charles de Gaulle, or Marne-La-Vallée to get to southern France, much less hassle than trekking across Paris.
  • Eutychus wrote: »

    Oh and @Bishops Finger you've obviously never been to the dodgy bits of Montpellier (my son lived there for a couple of years). And you should change in Lille, Charles de Gaulle, or Marne-La-Vallée to get to southern France, much less hassle than trekking across Paris.

    Well, yes - I confess that I have not explored the dodgy bits......and it is indeed more convenient to change trains at Lille. I must have been thinking of previous journeys to my sister's place when she lived further south, near Perpignan, at which time it seemed to be better to go via Paris (more trains!)
  • One airport (is it Schipol?) has a facial recognition thing where you have to remove your glasses AND look at a screen, positioning your face so that your eyes are looking at a specific point. For some of us, it's an either or - I can keep my glasses on and see the screen, or remove my glasses and not see it. I tried fixing my sight on the screen and then removing my glasses without moving my head, but it didn't really work.

    I think this must be a common problem, because a helpful person bustled up and waved me through after a couple of minutes of squinting and screwing up my face.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    Charles de Gaulle is variable according to when you go there. When they’re short-staffed, getting through security can take forever. The upside of this, I suppose, is that on the busy days they give up on the theatre of making you take your shoes off and all the rest, because they don’t have the time.

    My biggest airport gripe is with Birmingham International, who routinely take 45 minutes to deliver checked luggage. Apparently it’s got better these days, after numerous complaints, but it’s still incomprehensibly slow. It’s a small airport, how long can it take? Last time I was there, most of the actual luggage arrived in a sensible time, but for some reason, they didn’t deliver pushchairs for a good quarter of an hour after everything else was already gone, leaving a few fed-up families standing around the carousels for ages with our grumpy, over-tired infants.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Using the automatic passport control in Edinburgh involves staring into a screen showing a dishevelled hag.

    I’m pretty sure I can hear it snigger as I pass through.
  • I have significant medical metalwork that holds me together: at larger airports these implants don't become apparent to security staff unless I'm X-rayed, which invariably means I'm hustled towards a small room and "invited" to explain the stuff; at smaller airports I set off every alarm going and on one memorable occasions it caused no fewer than 3 men armed with Heckler & Koch automatic weapons to race up and surround me. All very tiresome and all so unnecessary: if a passport had space my metalwork could be listed under the old "peculiarities/ identifying features" but I'm told by the UK Passport people it doesn't apply now.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    @la vie en rouge When I first arrived in Abidjan airport there was a literal mountain of luggage that seemed to be about the size of the one in The Fifth Element, matched only by the one I saw in Pearson (Toronto) a couple of days after the Air France crash there in 2005.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Spare a prayer for the workers, comrades. They have to deal with us weary, stressed and frustrated passengers.

    But they have not been conscripted into service against their will. If they don't like their job they are free to find a different one.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    Glasgow has an excellent (and not horrendously priced) express bus service that gets you into the city in 20 minutes.

    As much as I hate San Diego International Airport, that's the best thing about them too. There is a city bus that takes you downtown, dropping you off at the train station among other places. Only $1.10 for senior citizens (twice that for the young 'uns, I think).

    Los Angeles, on the other hand . . . you have to wait interminably for a (free, thank goodness) shuttle bus that takes you to the light rail station (Green Line), from which you have to change trains to the Blue Line if you're going downtown. There is an express bus that will take you to Union Station, but it's prohibitively expensive and you still have to deal with the infamous LA freeway traffic.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Spare a prayer for the workers, comrades. They have to deal with us weary, stressed and frustrated passengers.

    But they have not been conscripted into service against their will. If they don't like their job they are free to find a different one.

    Hmm. I suspect that there may be some countries where this might not be the case.....or at least where it might not be so easy to find a job.

    But yes, be nice and polite to the Officials, and they may be polite and nice to you....
    :wink:

    As regards passport images etc., my (then) swarthy features, Che Guavara moustache, and general all-round grim grimace, earned me a number of embarrassing incidents many years ago (mostly at Schiphol) whilst going to and from the Netherlands. Clearly, I was a Colombian Drug-Runner, or else an International Terrorist....
    :confused:

  • LeRocLeRoc Shipmate
    Glasgow has an excellent (and not horrendously priced) express bus service that gets you into the city in 20 minutes.
    Lisbon too.
  • At one time, when I had a beard, I bore a passing resemblance to Gerry Adams, and drove an old Nissan Vanette. We got stopped every time on the ferries.

    Dressing smartly definitely improves the border control experience (being white also helps in many places).
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    Dressing smartly definitely improves the border control experience (being white also helps in many places).

    We once had a sad experience at the French side of Geneva train station. White and with Australian passports, we were waved through and onto our train. A family from the sub-continent were being put through the third degree and had to scramble aboard as the train was about to depart.
  • We have art to try to keep people happy.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    I've never been there, but surely Denver's International Airport has the, um, most arresting nightmare fuel art of any terminal anywhere?
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Gee D wrote: »
    We once had a sad experience at the French side of Geneva train station.
    The French side of Geneva airport, meanwhile, offers its own special foretaste of Hell.

    Arrive in the international section, see that your flight to Paris (which is only marginally faster than the TGV and you're only taking because you're in a huge hurry) is on time.

    Pass through passport control into the French side from which the only way out is by air.

    Discover it is barely larger than your living room, and also that your flight - your only means of escape - is in fact several hours late.

    Discover with dismay that the only refreshments venue, where you can redeem your delay voucher, is a stand the size of a small shopping trolley, the contents of which are disappearing before your eyes.

    Gaze through the huge plate glass partition separating you, like the rich man from Dives, from the Swiss side of the terminal which is about the size of Salisbury cathedral and where you have a clear view of people relaxing, eating, drinking, and generally having a good time as they wait, briefly, for their punctual flights.

    See a side to the Swiss you never imagined as the police are called to the terminal to quell the angry delayed passengers (the only police intervention I have ever witnessed in any airport in the world).

    Board three hours late and be told, once the doors are closed, that you have to wait in the plane on the runway two hours for the next slot.

    Sit terrified as the plane erupts into more uproar until the co-pilot, built like an All-Blacks player, emerges from the cockipit, yells at everyone "if you all sit down and shut up now we can take off in five minutes".

    Marvel as instant calm ensues and you take off.

    You don't want to fly with me.

  • I hate flying. I HATE airports - especially Birmingham International. It used to be possible to drop someone off without it costing an arm and a leg. Not now. And don't start me on the potholes - I destroyed the tracking on the car last time I dropped Chilperic off.
    OK - a couple of exceptions - Naples, because they have birds flying around the departure lounge. East Midlands, because it's small. Schiphol I've always found friendly until I tried to help a poor sod who was in trouble because they didn't have a Scottish passport. You couldn't make it up.
    Maybe I'll have to stay in this benighted country.
  • Going to and from a ski-ing holiday in France, we used Geneva airport.

    IIRC, the organised ski parties (ours was with Thomas Cook, no less) had to pass through a sort of large, austere, and cold, cattle-shed, around which the Swiss Army (I presume) trundled incessantly in a heavily-armed Little Tank (shades of Lieutenant Grueber in Allo! Allo!).

    Not the best impression of Switzerland, I'm afraid.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Spare a prayer for the workers, comrades. They have to deal with us weary, stressed and frustrated passengers.

    But they have not been conscripted into service against their will. If they don't like their job they are free to find a different one.

    easy to type, harder to do. They aren't exactly dream jobs, and the process of getting another job can be extremely foreboding, especially if you have had periods of unemployment, or are in circumstances or indeed a body likely to attract prejudice. Sometimes its better the devil you know.

    Anyway, I have been an arse today. Who am I to judge?
  • Several years ago post 911 my legally blind 82 year old neighbor had to remove her shoes.
This discussion has been closed.