Down by 15%. That was the striking number reported by the Evening Standard the other day. The decrease happened over the course of one eventful year, from 2008 to 2009. Fifteen per cent isn't small beer, either. It translates to ten million and describes the number of trips abroad residents of the UK declined to make from one year to the next.
The random snippet of statistics comes to mind as I sit in the departure lounge of Heathrow terminal 1, waiting for my flight to Dresden to be called. Around me are people, the usual airport crowd: ragged travelers; exhausted tourists; business people with smart suits, silver cuff links and black laptop cases; and families with children whose energies are only just contained. None of this is new; none of it surprises. I have seen it a dozen times before. At an airport traveling is always the same. And yet, things are a bit different from what they used to be.
The change began when the financial crisis opened the floodgates of doom. As the economy turned sour, traveling improved greatly. The crowds thinned considerably, sometimes even reaching numbers for which the airports were actually designed. Check-in kiosks became available without a wait and lines at and security checks shriveled to nothing. Frankfurt and Heathrow, mad zoos both of them, used to operate several notches beyond their capacity for years. Now they can comfortably with passenger traffic and have a smile to spare. Even in the posher waiting areas, there are usually seats available. There is air to breath; the air from the neighbor doesn't burn through one's skin.
Lufthansa reinstated direct flights to Dresden a couple of months ago and I should be delighted because I'm on one, but the flight is delayed. I'm sitting in a red faux-leather chair with a good view of the screen announcing the departure gates. Next to my flight, there a gaping hole of ignorance. The only number defines the expected delay: substantial but I don't mind the wait. For an airport, Heathrow is not all that bad – especially considering its abysmal reputation. And since it serves plenty of passengers despite the downturn, there's always something to see.
A gaggle of Middle Eastern ladies, disguised in uniformly black cloaks that are distinguished only by discreet labels of luxury fashion designers, mingle ebulliently with the two attendants running the supercar raffle, debating whether to buy one or more of the 20-pounds tickets. The raffle is apparently closing tomorrow; the red Ferrari California could be in the lucky winner's driveway by Monday. But would they even be allowed to drive where they are going?
As I debate this question, weighing their youthful excitement against the pious blackness of their shrouds, a blood-curdling noise erupts somewhere behind my left shoulder. The unlikely source of this industrial sound halfway between a sharp jangle and a fat roar is an elderly gentleman with a bulbous stomach who is evidently enjoying his afternoon nap a bit too much. My head is not the only one that turns his way and I can see amused smiles but also discharges of annoyance in the faces around me. Announcements of flight status updates are not particularly intrusive here. I'm afraid the sleeper will be badly disappointed when he wakes to find his plane long departed.
Mine isn't anywhere close. Not even the gate has been revealed. This kind of unjustified secrecy annoys me more than the raucous snorer. How hard can it be to set a gate an hour before departure? Quite hard, it seems; Heathrow is not the only place operating outside the laws of order and regularity. In France, every train station creates a cauldron of chaos every day. Trains follow schedules that don't vary for months and arrive at times known with certainly way in advance. There are only a limited number of platforms to choose and yet, matching one with the other is never achieved more than ten minutes before departure, at which point a breakneck drag race of frantic travelers kicks off, defying health-and-safety considerations at regular half-hour intervals.
A multiply delayed train held the ticket to my first proper conversation in French, way back in 1998 in Marseille. Returning from a week of rock climbing in the beautiful Calanques, I was half-sleeping in a dusty alcove when a rush of life stranded to my feet like a beached whale. Bags dropped to the ground, followed by the men who held them. A bearded migrant, clothed in charity surplus but in possession of a sleeper ticket to Strasbourg, inquired about the curiously shaped metal-and-string contraptions hanging from my backpack. I was more than mildly surprised when I discovered in me the words to reply to his question and outright stunned when I kept our conversation going until, twenty minutes later, a mighty jolt brought the beached whale back to life and people to their feet. The train would leave from platform 3.
My plane will leave from gate 49. A sign to my left indicates the direction and warns of a fifteen-minute walk. From the Harrod's outlet and the WH Smith, people with pleasant anticipation in their eyes emerge. There is no rush, but a trickle turns into a stream as more and more passengers hear the news and follow the sign. I fold up my newspaper and grab my pack. Thirty-five minutes until departure.
No comments:
Post a Comment