Sunday Times

The upright position

On what it takes to be an outstandin­g passenger

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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.

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