Seven things we don’t miss about travel: from delayed flights to long queues at passport control
- There is more to holidays than rest and relaxation – remember all those unnecessary hours spent at airports?
- What about TripAdvisor, sharing dormitories with strangers and watching the carousel turn as you wait for your baggage?
One day, when the coronavirus pandemic is over, airlines will dust off their fleets, hotels will fling open their doors and we will rekindle our love affair with travel. While we wait for things to return to normal (a new normal perhaps?), here is a selection of gripes, observations and handy hints to remind you of what it used to be like to wander the world (maybe you won’t miss it quite as much as you did before reading).
When will airport operators realise how important first and last impressions are?
While it is fair to point out that many terminal buildings are designed so that we are whisked through arrival formalities as painlessly as possible, there are those that seem to take great delight in making the entire process tortuously time-consuming.
You have no doubt negotiated arrival halls in which half the biometric scanners aren’t working, only three immigration staff are on duty and the air conditioning is kaput. There also appears to be a correlation between slow-moving zigzag queues and the equally slow delivery of baggage – not to mention dirty toilets, a lack of tourist information and predatory taxi drivers.
Eventually, you are admitted into the country and have a wonderful holiday. You meet some interesting people, enjoy delicious local food and visit amazing places. But your final memory? Waiting in line at passport control for two hours in order to get out again.
Airport hotels have only one task to get right and that’s a speedy, efficient check-in
We are tired and our sense of humour has temporarily deserted us; all we want is a room key and the Wi-fi password. The last thing we need is to spend forever filling out long forms but, of course, the more jet-lagged and exhausted we are, the more bureaucratic hurdles the process throws at us.