Toronto to Salt Lake City a few weeks ago:
Anyone who travelled through Pearson International Airport in Toronto the first official back to work day of the year was witness to living proof that one man can in fact change the world. As I embarked on my first ‘Up in the Air’ experience for 2010 (thank you George Clooney), it was clear that the repulsive attempt to bring down a US plane by one man (read kid with a mass murderer profile) travelling out of Amsterdam over the holidays, has managed to change yet again the way airport and airline security operates across our planet, and as such, inconvenience an entire world of passengers.
Well, change may be a strong word…perhaps focus is the word to use given nothing really has changed. There is just more of it – more checks, more people and more pat downs. The only thing that is less is the space you have to carry your on-board items in given a small purse and a laptop is pretty much it (thank god this has changed again since this post was first written week one of 2010). But this despicable individual certainly has put the world of airline transportation into a spin and is once again putting pressure on its leadership to look for real change in the way they do business. Proof positive of the profound affects an individual can have on the entire world – good or bad.
Being one of the thousands who travelled out of Pearson yesterday, let me run you through this ever hillarious – if it weren’t so serious) experience.
I started my day by looking at the bright side. The hordes of RCMP having been enlisted to assist with Torontos plight to get people on their planes safely and rapidly must surely find it pleasant to be stationed within the walls of a heated airport terminal as the outside temperatures hit a low of minus 20 degrees C (with wind chill of course). And, getting a firsthand glimpse into the array of creative items the public chooses to travel with must offer some semblance of humour to even the toughest of Mounty’s (do you really need that box of condoms on board with you – true, the woman – not man – in front of me was carrying them in her purse but who am I to judge what is a necessary air travel item.
Firstly, but not necessarily in order of magnitude, we’ve been communicated to for the last 7 days about the importance of getting to the airport early – Canadians are extremely compliant with the wishes of authorities and so they did their job – broadcasting their instructions 24/7 to would be travellers. “We are advising all passengers to get to the airport at least 3-4 hours before their flight so congestion levels through security don’t cause flight delays or worse still cause you to miss your flight”.
I heed the words of those in charge and arrive at 10 am for a 2pm flight. Yes, 4 hours ahead, am I crazy?! Happily, it takes about 4.5 minutes to check in and the place seems remarkably quiet – great – I walk to the entry point for US immigration with 3 hours, 54 minutes and 30 seconds to go. Phew! So far so good. But that’s where it all goes horribly wrong.
As I approach the doors I note throngs of people standing around. No one is moving. It’s then apparent that there is a queue albeit squashed into a large, hovering group, of disgruntled looking travellers. Wow – they must really be backlogged at immigration. Then a commanding voice bellows over the loudspeaker system – OK, it is Canada, a politely spoken almost apologetic voice starts warning people of the process ahead. “If you have already checked in (yes – tick), have your boarding pass (yes -tick), and your luggage tagged (yes -tick), you may kindly proceed through to US customs and immigration (yeah – I start walking) BUT ONLY IF YOU ARE ON ONE OF THE FOLLOWING FLIGHTS (I stop walking) OR IF YOU HAVE A FLIGHT DEPARTING AT 12 NOON”. It then dawns on me; If I get here 4 hours or two hours or 1 hour ahead of time concerns no one. I will not pass go, I will not see the happy smiling face of a US immigration officer (OK, forget the smile), I will not enter the wonderfully appointed Air Canada lounge anytime soon.
Sadly, I realize I will be sitting in the discomfort of an airport chair making no progress at all for the next 2 hours as I make another startling realization – terminal designers don’t invest in chairs! Alternatively, if you are Paul Gross (remember the Mounty on TV?) whom I noticed walk past me at about 11 am – one hour into my hurry up and wait time – life is easier. He was greeted with a lovely smile by the security girl and entered US immigration with no worries. I wondered what time his flight was.
To my surprise, I am told by a lovely and polite Canadian lady behind me at information that I can in fact only take a small ladies purse through security rather than the rather average sized laptop bag I transferred all my worldly purse belongings into to enable me to have only one carry on item and carry my laptop at the same time. I comply again and heed her words. I scurry off and buy a small purse big enough to squeeze a laptop in but not my book, or any extraneous items for my journey and I am surrounded by people also buying luggage. It has clearly been a stellar start to the year for the one small luggage shop in the terminal. I squash my Monocle laptop bag (as in Monocle Magazine – I loved their piece on airlines and how they need to get their act together and quit moaning about the cards they’ve been dealt, fix their industry and get on with life).
So after my two hour wait outside US immigration and my tour of the baggage store, my flight is called. I speed into action. To the defence of the US immigration staff, they do a stellar job of moving people through fairly rapidly. Given the number of passengers now in the hall and the queue starting at the door, it takes about 40 minutes to get through – but remember that it’s a fact queue time is exaggerated by people in the queue, 5 minutes can feel like 40! So although I know it was a long time, don’t quote me.
Now I’m at security. It is miraculously fast, efficient and low stress proving that throwing people at a problem can fix it, if one is not concerned with cost. Again the terrorists seem to be winning – If you can’t blow up a plane, let’s just bleed all those infidel dogs (don’t they call us that?) dry of every last scrap of money they have after they start to recover from the crappiest economic times since The Great Depression. But my beef is not the cost, it is the hundreds of laptop bags I now see around me, many larger than the distant memory I have of the one I sat on to fit it into my little carry-on sized Tummi luggage that I was made to check. I ask security if in fact I could have taken my laptop bag and they confirm ‘yes’.
So at 1:20 pm when I finally made it to enjoy the Air Canada lounge for about 7.5 minutes (sans laptop bag of course) before rushing off for my next dose of security searches, I noticed Mr Gross reclining in the comforts of the Air Canada lounge. Something tells me his flight was not cancelled. No, celebrity-dom has its perks. One would think he was curing cancer, but I doubt that would have gotten anyone a jump start through immigration today, that is left only for celebrities, after all, their time is of course more precious than ours.
So my final ‘touch’ point with security is now the throngs of RCMP lining the only free aisle to the boarding gates – albeit some very attractive ones in their Sunday best uniforms, a nice change I think from the usual airport personnel …oh, no offense of course but nothing beats a man in uniform…er… OK, policeman in uniform. Here we are segregated into queues of male and female to ensure no boys germs are inflicted on unsuspecting female passengers and three women inspect my belongings, pat me up including a hand on my crotch (I now understand why we’ve been segregated) causing me to remember the explosives wrapped around the man who changed the worlds’ genitals, and, with much relief, I am finally on my way.
But it was of course the noticeable lack of progress the airline security business has made that is most noticeable today. In fact, it leaves me feeling bewildered that boards and governments the world over are continuing to allow these leaders to remain in place. There is a serious need for leadership succession to fight this serious problem, and clearly a need for leadership innovation.
Wow – today’s airline travel-log is really a case study in poor communication, incorrect information, poor processes, no continuous improvement methodology and most of all, poor leadership. The people on the ground are doing the best they can to execute their bosses wishes. At this point I am reminded of one of the stories in the book Start Up Nation. It describes how a small Israeli company addressed online fraud – It was not the people sitting with the problem who solved the problem, but the people who had solved similar problems in another arena who came up with a greater and more appropriate solution. Clearly they see past the trees. Perhaps we need to get a group of ex-Isreali soldiers together to solve this problem and make one of them the CEO of airline security worldwide? Couldn’t be worse than the current results, surely?
OK, one last thought. It is a well known fact (well, well known to some) that a smile is contagious. People served with a smile in restaurants report feeling much more satisfied with their meals than people who were served by people who did not smile. Hmmm…. perhaps we could have just used a few more smiles today rather than the one lone smile I saw flashed at Paul Gross as he breezed into immigration as if he held the cure for cancer. No offence Paul, hey – if you’ve got it, flaunt it. I only wish I’d got it. Or perhaps you have a Nexus card. I need to get one. 
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Tags: Air Travel, Christmas Day Bomber, Pearson International, Security, Toronto Airport, US travel
