It's easy to get peeved by our indisciplined traffic in India. Most Indians weave traffic snarls by the way we drive or we encourage or rather do not discourage those who drive us. The trouble now is that we are getting quite adept at causing human traffic jams in the air. Yes - when we fly .
Any frequent air traveller in India knows the routine. Queue up for entering the airport, deposit baggage ( if any), check in & collect boarding card if not web checked in, x-ray handbags and mobile devices at security, queue up for security frisk, board bus or walk through aerobridge to enplane. Simple.
Now here is where we invent commotion. Many travellers tend to carry more than the allowed number of handbags or have overweight handbags or both. Then we saunter past the aisle and with swift well practiced moves we randomly juggle the already placed handbags of other passengers to suit our needs. Once plonked on our seat, we like to make our last minute, always so urgent phone call, even as the pilot is pulling back the aircraft from the aerobridge onto the tarmac and the helpless stewardess is imploring us to switch off the mobile device. And all of us think we are very smart and do not switch off the phone and we get our own pleasures in beguiling the airline staff not once thinking that this actually increases the risk of mixed radio signals. And for many who do, they forget to switch off their second or third hand held device.
As presaged in Murphy's Law, inevitably the window seat passenger is one who enplanes last, usually with a mobile phone stuck to one ear and with a look of disdain, gestures to the middle and aisle seated to make way. We are like this only !
Some smart airlines have started boarding by zones , first the back benchers, next the not so back benchers , followed by the middle benchers and then the front benchers. It would make more sense if they first boarded both the window seaters, then the middle seaters and last the aisle seaters. Business and First being excluded from this discussion.
Cut to landing time. For those whose phones were not switched off in the first place, start beeping or vibrating and the obedient few who had actually switched off their devices are in a hurry to get back to network even before the rubber meets the runway.
Now it is the time for the aisle seaters, usually the one's seated towards the belly of the aircraft, to get in action. Swiftly opening the overhead luggage hold, they retrieve their hand baggage - usually a company provided laptop and jostle through the rightly entitled as if they are members of India's elite Special Protection Group and are called in for an emergency situation. Why can't we learn to deplane in queue....... row 1 first and then row 2 and so on. I would estimate that over 80% of adult passengers on any aircraft would be more than high school educated. I guess we must find some inner savage satisfaction in behaving like an imbecile.
Last but not the least. The luggage belt.
Granted that the lengths of the luggage belts in India are only as long as the imagination of our aviation experts, but we do make a urban kumbha mela while retrieving our bags. Our luggage trolley has to be the one touching the belt. One of our kids has to be on the trolley and the other flirting dangerously with the belt and the one's whose bags are making the merry go round are usually found tapping shoulders of passengers in front and then running ahead to meet their long lost bags.
Safe Travels
As presaged in Murphy's Law, inevitably the window seat passenger is one who enplanes last, usually with a mobile phone stuck to one ear and with a look of disdain, gestures to the middle and aisle seated to make way. We are like this only !
Some smart airlines have started boarding by zones , first the back benchers, next the not so back benchers , followed by the middle benchers and then the front benchers. It would make more sense if they first boarded both the window seaters, then the middle seaters and last the aisle seaters. Business and First being excluded from this discussion.
Cut to landing time. For those whose phones were not switched off in the first place, start beeping or vibrating and the obedient few who had actually switched off their devices are in a hurry to get back to network even before the rubber meets the runway.
Now it is the time for the aisle seaters, usually the one's seated towards the belly of the aircraft, to get in action. Swiftly opening the overhead luggage hold, they retrieve their hand baggage - usually a company provided laptop and jostle through the rightly entitled as if they are members of India's elite Special Protection Group and are called in for an emergency situation. Why can't we learn to deplane in queue....... row 1 first and then row 2 and so on. I would estimate that over 80% of adult passengers on any aircraft would be more than high school educated. I guess we must find some inner savage satisfaction in behaving like an imbecile.
Last but not the least. The luggage belt.
Granted that the lengths of the luggage belts in India are only as long as the imagination of our aviation experts, but we do make a urban kumbha mela while retrieving our bags. Our luggage trolley has to be the one touching the belt. One of our kids has to be on the trolley and the other flirting dangerously with the belt and the one's whose bags are making the merry go round are usually found tapping shoulders of passengers in front and then running ahead to meet their long lost bags.
Safe Travels
Comments