We’re told all the time that we’re living in a digital age and yet we’re surrounded by out of date, clunky systems. In a new series, Electricpig will be looking at the worst offenders to our digital sensibilities. First up: airports.
How often have you lost your ticket; been without Wi-fi and charging points while you wait for your delayed flight; hauled your luggage off and on three shuttle buses just to get to the check-in desk, and then been faced with in flight entertainment screens that look like they’re borrowed from the Short Circuit set? The answer? Too often. Read on for what we’d do to fix airports.
Table of improvements:
- Tickets
- Passports
- Luggage drop-off
- Airport seating
- Free Wi-fi and charging points
- In-flight entertainment
- Security
Tickets
Why not ditch paper tickets completely? We should be able to check in via our smartphones, saving on paper, time and hassle. Apple and other tech firms have already stored up the patents to make it a reality and NFC-packing phones like the Google Nexus S will make it simpler. Electronic tickets are happening but just not fast enough. They’d also mean far less chance of losing your ticket…well, unless you’re prone to losing your phone too. Death to paper tickets!
Passports
Passports: more like past-ports. These archaic paper documents are well past it, and while biometric passports are a step in the right direction, it’s not enough. We’d like to see a fingerprint scan that brings up your passport for the airline staff, meaning you don’t have to remember anything.
Luggage drop off
Luggage drop off should be at your point of entry into the terminal – a question about whether you packed it yourself and then stick it down a chute, after scanning your smartphone to tell it where to go. This eliminates the need for trolleys and traipsing through terminals with heavy bags.
American Airlines, along with 35 other airlines, let you print off your own luggage tags, so that you can skip through an automated, self service, (in theory) super quick baggage check in. They still check your ID, but it means that you shouldn’t get hit with sticky queues at the “fast baggage drop off” desk.
If the airline insists on issuing tags, then make them GPS-enabled with an app download to let you track your luggage. This way you’ll know if your luggage is headed to Honalulu and you might be able to grab a coffee before your bag rolls off the carousel.
Airport seating: not designed with humans in mind
Who hasn’t had a flight delayed in the last 12 months? Not many of us. With so many problems stopping us getting off on time, seats in airports are still seem ergonomically designed to make you wriggle about until back strain forces you on to the far more comfortable floor. Why is this so – it’s detrimental to passengers and staff, as the latter get the griping from the former. Let’s get some comfy benches, shaped with humans in mind if possible, that convert to beds in case of delays. Everyone will be that much happier.
Free Wi-fi and charging points
What’s the one thing that characterises almost all journeys involving planes? Waiting. Waiting to check in, waiting to get through security, waiting for your gate to be called, waiting at the gate for boarding and waiting on the tarmac to take off. That’s a lot of waiting, where we don’t want to be fishing magazines and books in and out of bags, so why not give us free Wi-fi? Throughout the terminal building, and in the air please.
Those travelling for business will have their offline time cut by a chunk, and you can keep your passengers updated on the status of their flight wherever they are. Airports should also implement charging points – permanent versions of the phone charging tents you find at music festivals.
Wi-fi has been available sporadically in flight for a year or two, with trials and freebies knocking around on select airlines (Virgin America ran a trial at the end of 2009). A couple of airlines have rolled out paid services, but this isn’t far enough – we’d like to see free Wi-fi, so we can FaceTime, download films or TV shows and digital newspapers, so we can really take advantage of our mobile devices when we want them most.
In flight entertainment
Look at the tiny fuzzy screens mounted on the back of aeroplane headrests and you’d be forgive for thinking you’d gone back in time, and started expecting to be offered a SodaStream and a copy of Smash Hits magazine. With airline in flight entertainment more primitive than your gran’s rented telly, why is there just one airline planning to implement customised iPads for its customers?
Australian airline JetStar – the Ozzy equivalent of BMI Baby – is planning to swap those pitiful fuzzy screens for iPads for all. Its JetStar branded iPads will come with a stripped back, customised UI (so that you won’t be able to download anything or browse the web) and batteries modded on to give 20hrs of playback. Just a shame they don’t fly this side of the world.
Do it like Ben Gurion
The safest airport in the world is Israel’s Ben Gurion International. No flight leaving Ben Gurion has ever been hijacked. The Israelis look for bombs and weapons just as much as their compatriots at airports elsewhere in the world but they aren’t obsessed with those things. Israeli security is about what Rafi Ron, who used to head up security at Ben Gurion, refers to as the “human factor”. The Israeli approach aims to uncover inconsistencies in the story of any potential attacker. It focuses on the reality of threats rather than engaging in what security expert Bruce Schneier dubbed “security theatre” in his book Beyond Fear. Much of what we put up with at UK, European and US airports is security theatre with little proof that it is effective.
A remade, remixed and improved airport experience would take much more from the Israeli approach than the heavy handed and lead-footed moves of airport security here. While we obviously need to adjust our security procedures to our cultural and historical experience, there really is no need for the experience of flying to be such a stressful experience drenched with passive aggression and inconvenience. So what should we be taking from the Ben Gurion Model?
Getting into the airport
Outside the terminal all motor vehicles go through a preliminary security checkpoint before getting into the main airport compound with armed guards performing spot-checks. Similarly armed personnel work the entrances to the terminal and speak to any individual that gives them concern. The airport is also patrolled by plainclothes officers and covered by both overt and covert security cameras.
Profiling
Much of Israeli airport security is not visible. It starts from the moment you enter the terminal. Officials watch your behaviour closely looking for clues that may suggest a threat. Nervous or wearing inappropriately bulky clothing? You’ll be pulled in for enhanced checks. The Israeli security profilers are trained extensively to watch for subtler signs. Their job is to discover if there is anything out of the ordinary or which seems odd about you. They are by no means polite and their questions can see intrusive but the interview process results in a far faster and, vitally, more effective process.
Baggage screening
Once you’ve passed the interview process, your bags can be x-rayed before you’re allowed to proceed but if security has assessed you as low risk, you may be allowed to pass straight through to check in. Hand baggage is always x-rayed at a later point in the process. Only once the profiler is sure that you pose no risk do you get to check-in. At that point the Israelis see no need to make you remove your shoes or hand over your water bottle.
Additional reporting by Mic Wright
What would you change about flying? Shout out in the comments with your weird, wonderful, and sensible suggestions for improving airports.
