EU should act to stop airlines abusing passengers
As well as incompetence and factors outside their control, much of this is down to the airlines trying, by fair means or foul, to reduce fares and increase profits.
Airlines regard passengers as a nuisance, treating them like cattle and organising things according to their whims with complete disregard for passengers’ convenience.
Outwardly, staff are polite and helpful, but this belies their role as officious automatons haunted by ‘security’ shibboleths and fearful of management.
Ironically, everyone accepts, without question, the deliberate and unnecessary delays imposed on passengers by the ‘checking-in’ procedure.
Clearly, baggage needs to be checked-in on time, but there should be no need for passengers without baggage to check in at all. This is a case of ‘emperor’s new clothes syndrome’.
Because all airlines do it, passengers assume it is necessary and staff, if asked, will concoct all sorts of absurd reasons, the favourite being ‘security’, but having crowds of people hanging around for hours on end is really quite helpful for a terrorist attack.
By introducing artificial delays far longer than any delay that could possibly occur due to operational reasons, airlines and airports seek to protect themselves. This is outrageous.
Personally, I would rather risk an occasional delay than a certain delay enforced by protracted check-in times.
People know how much time to allow to get to the airport, to park, to get through security, passport control and walk to the gate, and they add on a contingency to allow for delays.
By adding on an artificial delay, it means people have to hang around for several hours before they board the plane. A trip requiring two short-haul flights takes a whole day.
Instead of a meaningless flight time, various check-in times ranging from 40 minutes to several hours, and a fictional gate closure time, all that is needed for passengers with hand luggage is a genuine gate closure time a couple of minutes before the plane door closes to allow passengers to cross the apron or loading bridge. If you miss the flight, that is your problem. It certainly does not affect the airline or the airport.
Like duty-free, checking-in is an anachronism dating back to the days of handwritten manifests and manual baggage handling.
A few years ago, airlines would allow passengers arriving ‘late’ to board, but now late arrivals are refused boarding even in tiny airports and even if the incoming flight is delayed and when it quite obvious such passengers could be accommodated easily.
Things are getting worse. Minimum check-in times are getting longer and longer, despite the advent of automated and containerised baggage-handling and all the other hi-tech paraphernalia.
It is about time EU governments tackled the misery of air travel and the callous stupidity of airline management. Rules are needed to prevent airlines abusing passengers. However, politicians, like everyone else, cannot see that the emperor has no clothes.
Michael Job
Rossnagrena
Glengarriff
Co Cork
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