Airports

Airports must be the most depressing places in the world. Remember the big fuss when Jan Smuts was changed to Johannesburg International and then again to Oliver Tambo? Who cares? If someone is ever misguided enough to name a building after me I hope it will be a home for destitute Corgies or a Thai massage parlour - somewhere people at least enjoy visiting. I have seldom seen anyone in an airport looking cheerful. Actually it is worse than that. I have seldom seen anyone in an airport who does not look harrassed, tired, uncomfortable, irritable or just downright depressed.

Give them their due, some airports do try, and they are getting better. The new Johannesburg international sections are a vast improvement on the old - roomy, better ventilated, adequate seating, reasonably quiet except for when some Einstein trundles past with a large red bookshelf on wheels - at 10 pm. There is wireless internet which actually works, quite a selection of shops, most of which don't all close their doors the moment the sun sets and clean loo's which you can't smell from the other side of the building. Some go even further. Singapore has a gym, rentable sleeping rooms, a pool, an outside garden and free internet. Even Maputo, which used to take the cake for inefficiency and sheer user-unfriendliness, is improving. So it is not that they don't try. It is just somethign about being an airport.

It is the things which we have to do at airports which make them symbols of frustration. Everything from getting forex to getting a customs letter for your laptop to checking-in to getting through the security check to surviving passport control is a hassle and potentially a big hassle - will I make my plane? will there be problems with my visa? will I forget my wallet when I take it out of my pocket for the Xray scanner? Even loyalty program platinum card travellers usually have to put up with these irritations. It is partly the anxiety but it is also the indignity of being treated as a number. Or a potential criminal.  Why does it take 15 minutes, a gazillion questions, a boarding pass and a passport to draw 100 euros at the ABSA Bureau de Change in the airport, but I can go to an ATM in Paris, stick my card in and walk away with the same amoutn of cash in under a minute?

But OK, one runs the gauntlett and makes it into the hallowed halls of the "duty free shops". I mean what is it with duty free shops? Who do they think they are kidding? They load the prices by 200% and then tell you you are saving because you don't pay 14% VAT. Do they think we are imbeciles? We obviously are because we carry on buying there. How about a little honesty, like "ACSA charges us a fortune to rent these premises and so we will charge you at least triple what you would pay in the Pick 'n Pay? Also, half of you are used to paying in pounds, dollars, euro's or yen and so you actually won't notice. And lastly, many of you have unspent rands you want to get rid of and we would dearly like to take them off you.?" Then at least we will understand each other. But spare us the "save with duty free" garbage. The coffee shop here wants R33 for a tuna sandwich, R25 for a latte, R10 for a can of cold drink, R18 for a muffin, R25 for a large packet of crisps, R35 for a tube of Pringles. Converted into dollars those are reasonable (but not cheap) prices.  Leaving them in rands they certainly aren't.

Then comes boarding. In theory there is no advantage to being in the front of the queue, since seats are reserved. But actually, there is. Those who get on first fill up the overhead racks with all the bulky luggage which they should have checked in in the first place and because there is not enough room the rest have to somehow find space under the seats, usually limiting leg room in the process. Everyone knows this so there is a fair amount of jostling and barging and queue jumping at the gates. It is a tense time, made worse by the special treatment doled out to first and business class passengers (considering what they are paying I don't have a problem with that). It is more the crowd control tactics they use when marshalling us into the plane which leaves me feeling resentful.

OK - here's the last bitch. Is it really impossible to reorganise the seating in a plane so that passengers don't have to climb over other passengers when they need to go to the loo? Or stretch their legs? How about pairs of seats facing inwards - I refuse to believe that we can produce iPhones but not figure out how to get 300 people seated without causing gridlock. Why does it take 5-10 minutes sometimes just to get the aircraft doors open when disembarking? Why do we all have to go out the front door?

OK - that is my gripe for the night. In about 15 minutes I expect to be summoned to the cattle wagon. I guess 50 years ago I would have been boarding the Union Castle. Transit time about 50 times longer but at least you could stretch your legs.

Here we go - business class Gate 9, economy gate 10.

Ho hum.