The other day I was on my way to the airport when I noticed that the icon for “arrivals” is quite incorrect, depicting an aeroplane headed nose-first towards the tarmac. That’s not a landing, I thought; that’s an imminent aviation disaster. But then again, I’d rather die in a huge fireball than arrive at the airport in one piece. I hate airports.
Firstly, there’s getting there. An airport can never be found in a convenient location; it’ll either be 100 km away or hemmed into an awkward spot between a mess of gridlocked roads. A taxi there will always be a pretty penny, but the public transport links (if there are any) will also be ridiculously expensive for the mediocre service they offer. However you decide to go, you’ll never get there on time. You’ll either turn into your dad and arrive six hours early, or some holdup on the way will leave you in a panicked scramble for your flight.
Upon stepping on airport grounds, people collectively and suddenly forget how to act as functional human beings. As they cross the threshold of the building, they stop dead in their tracks, clueless as to what to do next. Despite most of them having traversed an airport at least once before, you must now spend the next two hours shoving your way through crowds of bodies that have frozen in panic during the various stages of terror which you too are about to experience.
It begins at the turnstiles where you have to scan your boarding pass. People will be absolutely hogging the things, attempting to scan their library card, bus pass, Tesco receipt, or any other document that isn’t their boarding pass in an attempt to get through. I think this is because nobody actually wants the turnstiles to open, as what looms beyond is the endless zigzagging of the queue for security.
This is where things really fall apart.
The protocol is simple. Large electronics and liquids out of your bag, boots and belts off, everything in the tray. It’s well signposted, and the rules are familiar to anyone who’s flown before. And yet here we have a woman asking an incredulous security operator whether water counts as a liquid, and there’s an elderly man in the next lane along being scolded for trying to barge through the metal detector with his whole backpack. There’s a look of abject terror in his wife’s eyes; I guess she thinks he’s going to be arrested. If I were prime minister, he would be.
Once you’ve worked your way through the hopeless masses, you will enter the repacking area, a feature that nobody thinks to use. You will always be lumped in with that one twat who insists that he must get everything back into his bag before it hits the end of the rollers behind the X-ray machine. Get your stuff and move out the fucking way so I can get mine.
Now that the humiliation of security is over, it’s time to be humiliated all over again, this time at passport control. Another maze of queues awaits, after which I’ll be asked to show my boarding card out at the exact moment that my phone screen seizes up and stops working. I’ll eventually get it working, though, and they’ll let me pass through to confront the final boss of airport horrors: duty free.
Does anybody actually like duty free? Or is our collective loathing for it the reason behind them forcing us through the place? With a bulky bag on my back, I have to slalom my way between shelves full of glass bottles and ceramic gifts, a recipe for disaster that, miraculously, has never come to pass. Then there are the salespeople at every turn, caked in foundation and way too much hair gel. They lie in wait, prepared to attack and offer you a sample of the latest overpriced perfume. Fellow passengers also block the way, stopping suddenly to take a look at a huge Toblerone or pack of ten thousand fags. This gymkhana through one of the most overstimulating places on earth continues until you emerge at the other end, now more flustered than ever.
This is not ideal, as you’re about to enter the Wild West that is the departure lounge.
The departure lounge is the closest thing to purgatory we have here on earth; a place where there’s nothing to do but wait. You can’t simply walk onto your plane and get cozy, but neither can you relax. This is partly because you’re still completely overwhelmed by the meat grinder through which you have just passed, but also because you’ve to be on high alert. You never know when your flight might be altered, your gate changed, or other such last-minute nonsense. And you can’t check it from where you want to sit, because the information screens are always facing the other damn way.
Not that there is anywhere to sit down anyway. If you were ever curious as to what the unwritten rules of urinal etiquette are, just observe how people distribute themselves across airport seating: exactly one free chair between each occupied one. These empty seats will then usually be occupied by someone’s backpack or jacket as a deterrent should you even think of sitting there. You could technically sit here, they signal, but you’d have to ask my owner, and you’re probably too exhausted to actually do that at this point.
So you may resolve to do something useful with your time. If you craftily emptied your water bottle before a sour-faced security guard could pinch it off you, now is the time to go and refill it. If you’re lucky, the airport will offer working water fountains, but they’ll be surrounded by squelching and mouldy rugs. These will all be located just next to the toilets in such a way that you can catch a whiff of clandestine cigarettes and fresh faeces emanating from the cabins within. At least this will help numb your appetite and save you being bled dry by the airport restaurants.
With still no seat in sight, you’ll then begin to wander around in a daze, hoping to come across some hidden corner of the airport where nobody will charge you money just for existing. But all you’ll find is empty corners, abandoned signage, and liminal spaces full of dust. You’ll discover the presence of this dust as you throw your exhausted body onto the grimy floor, now resigned that this is where you’ll be spending the next hour or so.
When the time eventually comes, you’ll have to walk to your gate, which will undoubtedly be found at the opposite end of the terminal. The airline worker will probably insist on checking your bags and then try to fine you for oversized baggage. Either that, or they’ll not bother checking at all, which will piss you off all the same as you’ll be angry that you didn’t dare to pack that extra pair of shoes. Everything in this cursed place presents a lose-lose situation.
The airbridge will then be either too hot or too cold, which wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t always keep you waiting there for an inordinate amount of time. It’s okay, though, as you can entertain yourself with the endless adverts or by dodging the airport workers trundling up and down with bulky cases. You may decide to sit on the floor once more, but you’ll undoubtedly end up doing that at the exact moment the queue begins to move again.
With that, though, your time at this insufferable place will be coming to an end. You’ll walk past all the smarmy buggers with the extra legroom, or brush shoulders with the haughty-naughty crowd filing into business class. You’ll find your seat, smile awkwardly at the person next to you, and prepare for a different kind of suffering: the flight itself.
But at least you’re not in the fucking airport.