The upright position
On what it takes to be an outstanding passenger
IHAVE often wondered what life must be like for people who work at airports. For those of us who only visit them for travel purposes, an airport is a place suspended between destinations, a place of queues and long walks and the anxiety endured while waiting to see if your tweezers will be confiscated. Mine once were. What did they think I was going to do with them? Pluck the pilot’s nose hairs if he didn’t divert the plane to Guam?
For some, an airport is a strange sort of interplanetary home. Among the everchanging indigence of travellers must exist a community of faces familiar to each other. I suppose it’s not the worst place in the world to work. There are amenities and facilities and, if your station is in the arrivals hall, the heart-warming sight of families tearfully reunited. The ebb and flow of crowds as aeroplanes come and go must become a routine by which one’s days are measured, like a fisherman watching the tide.
All very well, but how do airport employees live with the constant announcements? Hearing a nasal loudspeaker telling me to attend to my luggage every few minutes would drive me bats. Especially if I didn’t have any luggage.
There are three airport announcements that irk me, and this is one of them. “Any unattended baggage will be removed and destroyed.” I know they mean baggage abandoned by its neglectful owner (like a puppy, a suitcase is not just for Christmas), but that’s not how it sounds. To attend to something, as far as I understand it, means to care for it, to pay it attention. Hence my anxiety — how do I know if I’m paying my suitcase enough attention? If I don’t buy it a cup of coffee or give it a little pat every few minutes, will it be taken away from me and destroyed?
Then there’s the call for “outstanding passengers” to board. Sometimes the flight being announced is the one I’m supposed to be on, but I’m never quite sure if the announcement applies to me. I don’t think I’m an outstanding passenger. I’m not terrible: I’ve never clicked my fingers for a stewardess, called her “hostie”, or pressed the button to summon her — except once, by mistake. I may have stuck my foot out when a small child was running screaming up and down the aisle, but it didn’t hurt itself badly. I’d call myself an above-average passenger, but I wouldn’t say outstanding. Which may be why I’ve missed the odd flight — if they had called for the normal, everyday kind of passenger, things might have been different.
Lastly and finally is the one that annoys me most. “This is a last and final boarding call.” First of all, last means final and vice versa — there’s no need for such unnecessary verbiage. Secondly, they’re lying, because a few seconds later will come exactly the same announcement pertaining to exactly the same flight: “This is a last and final boarding call.” No it’s not, and why should I believe anything you say after that? I think I’m going to stop stroking my suitcase — perhaps even give it a bit of a kick now and then — just to see if anyone really is paying attention.