Ground Floor As somebody who has averaged four flights a week for the past 10 years, I can attest to the fact that travelling by plane has become a truly awful experience.
Looking at all those smiling faces in the queue for security in Dublin Airport the other day, I can only admire the resilience and fortitude of the travelling public.
The travel business is in turmoil these days, for all sorts of reasons. Transatlantic traffic is still lacklustre post September 11th and Asian travel has been heavily hit by the SARS outbreak. The global economic slowdown is a problem for everyone, not least in Europe, where national carriers have to cope with the competition posed by the low-cost carriers - where Ryanair reigns supreme.
If you add up all the profits made by the world's airlines since the Wright brothers you get a negative number.
Airports tend to fall into one of two categories: dreadful or nasty. Heathrow, definitely in the nasty category, is possibly one of the worst airports in the world from the perspective of the business traveller.
The last three times I have been in terminal one there has been a full evacuation thanks to a seemingly errant fire alarm.
Terminal two at Charles de Gaulle is not far behind. The never-ending renovations made to Dublin Airport over the past few years have steadily downgraded the Irish travel experience.
JFK in New York is a study in how not to build, and re-build, a major international airport. Some of the exceptions to all of this are, not surprisingly perhaps, away from the mainstream in places like Scandinavia. Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur have magnificent facilities.
Given these contrasting examples, it is a mystery why some airport authorities can do it while others manifestly cannot.
The greatest boon to travellers has come in the form of internet booking - a fantastic innovation. Aer Lingus has got it almost right, but only at the second attempt. Unlike some others, it allows booking mistakes to be rectified (if you notify the company on the same day). But, oddly, I was told that, because Aer Lingus has "so many flights", you cannot get access to it on its website. The very nice person who responded to my email query about this suggested I contact them by phone. Quaint, but curious.
The low-cost carriers have pioneered use of the Net and have delivered an across-the-board fall in fares. Ryanair, of course, has been in the vanguard here in Europe. Not, as far as I can see, as innovators of a new business model but as a more-or-less copy of the model developed by South West Airlines in the US.
Ryanair has spawned many imitators, not least Aer Lingus, which should be congratulated for combining low fares with still decent levels of customer service - something all the other budget airlines lack and will come to see as a mistake.
Immigration officials around the world generally add to the grim travel experience. Canadians used to be the worst but there has been a noticeable improvement of late.
Clearing US immigration in Dublin is a fantastic idea but an extremely variable experience.
You occasionally get a smile but it is the exception rather than the rule.
Arriving in Dublin from London is a depressing experience, with immigration officials seeming to demand passports where none should be necessary.
My heart always sinks when I stand close to a non-white person in the queue (yes, queues again) as I know they are destined for the third degree.
There is no such arrangement going from Dublin to London. Equally free and easy are the Schengen group of countries in Europe, which don't seem to be as convinced as the Irish that every dark-skinned person is an illegal immigrant.
The stupidity of airport planners and managers is at the heart of the traveller's problems. Too many management teams seem unable to cope with large numbers of people.
Management devotes huge amounts of time and money to building pristine shopping malls that are fantastically well run. But they don't know how to do check-in or security. And they are generally clueless when it comes to baggage reclaim.
If airport management is about keeping large amounts of people relatively happy within confined spaces then I am pretty sure that a bunch of prison warders could do a better job than Aer Rianta (and Aer Rianta could do a better job of running supermarkets than some of the present incumbents).
Go to Dublin Airport at six o'clock any Monday morning and marvel at the queue of taxis and cars. Why didn't they build a pedestrian ramp that takes people away from disrupting traffic away from the main entrance to the airport?
Why do the two security queues become so long that they overlap in the middle of the terminal. Michael O'Leary is right in everything he says about Aer Rianta.
Sheila O'Flanagan is on leave
