Whatever mode of transport brings you to the airport; you are hurriedly ejected from the taxi, bus, tram, train or the car of a loved one so they can get on with their lives without you for a while.
You are left outside the terminal building with a forest of signs and arrows telling you where to go and how to get there, except for the one place you want to be, your seat on the plane. The only human beings around, if you are lucky, are the porters who have degrees in psychology and have a way of assessing you from 20 paces out so they can avoid you if you don’t look gullible enough to part with your cash for the minimum effort possible on their part.
You have recently gone and splashed out on the most sophisticated piece of luggage you can find. You have justified the squandering of hundreds of Dollars, Euros or Pounds on the grounds that you are a busy businessperson who travels a lot and you need a sturdy and versatile suitcase to take care of your personal belongings. You choose one that is stylish in an understated manner, with some distinguishing features without being too flashy or colourful. You choose it with a set of four double wheels for ease of manoeuvre so you don’t have to exert too much effort moving it around airports and hotels. You have earned that expensive piece of luggage; you are worth it!
Inside the building, there are rows and rows of counters to help you but by definition; you are always at the farthest point possible from your own airline bank of counters; you look up your own airline amongst the other 300+ airlines and find it is some 2km away from where you are standing; you have to drag your suitcase on its wheels designed to take the weight of a T Shirt and a pair of shorts. The wheels of your new suitcase get in to an argument amongst themselves and decide not to cooperate with one another, making it almost impossible for you to pull or push the damned thing in a straight line. So, you end up carrying this heavy and shiny object like an oversized lapdog, including the heaviest component in the entire arrangement, the rebellious wheels and their mechanism. It is a little like pulling your donkey on the way to the fields because he suddenly does not feel like working that day, or pushing your expensive car up a hill because the battery ran out due to the fact a 3-watt light was accidentally left on overnight.
You walk along the shiny floor of the concourse for what seems like eternity passing by hundreds of unattended counters, save for the odd one with a couple of customers, and feel a little elated that with so few passengers around, you should be processed quickly and will soon be rid of your troublesome suitcase, sitting in your comfortable seat on the plane enjoying a well-deserved gin and tonic. You finally arrive at the bank of counters that belong to your airline and find it is the only one that has half of humanity standing in line wanting to check in. It seems all other airlines have shut shop and sent their entire staff on vacation using your airline on that very day. You are pleased with yourself because you have a business class ticket and they have a counter especially for that and you discover there are only 3 passengers ahead of you. Relief washes over you.
Unfortunately, the passenger being processed has 17 oversized suitcases and they belong to the gentleman’s entire family who are sitting on the side waiting while he takes care of business on their behalf as they rest their weary muscles. Passports are mixed up, boarding passes do not tally with the passports, he is inquiring about where to go afterwards, asking for invitation to the business lounge for himself and his entire brood, he is joking with the bored check-in clerk, and you are growing a beard waiting for the agony to end. In the meantime, the economy line is moving smoothly and you wonder if it wasn’t better to have joined the long queue after all.
Finally, your turn arrives and you dump your suitcase on the scales with relief. You wait for the electronic counter to register the weight hoping that you have not blown your weight limit, which you hadn’t and wonder why the damn thing felt like a ton of weight when you carried it and now, it is only registering 19kg, surely, it felt more like 190kg!
Boarding pass in hand with no suitcase to encumber your progress, you skip along to immigration and security feeling like a butterfly. So much so, you go to “Duty Free” and begin to load yourself up with over-priced stuff you don’t need, or cannot afford. I don’t know how these shops get away with the claim that you can buy things cheaper at airports. You certainly can poison yourself with tobacco and alcohol more cheaply but I rather doubt that you can be scented, dressed up or electronically equipped more cheaply.
Business lounges are another source of frustration for me, so I will skip that for now. You have landed at the other end and you were dealt with brusquely by immigration. You go to the luggage claims area to be reunited with your beloved but rebellious new suitcase. One piece of luggage after another are spewed out from a black hole on to the belt that goes round and round for ever. Your suitcase is still making a stand and refusing to join the merry-go-round. When it finally arrives, you can tell it had been in a mortal fight with a bunch of other suitcases or has been used as a punch bag by powerful and bored luggage handlers. That expensive container with a 10-year warranty is a poor shadow of its former self. It is battered, bent, scratched and bruised beyond redemption. You pull it out of the carousel and set it down on the ground. You pull then you push the unfortunate container. It finally staggers alongside you with a squeak that draws the attention of every other passenger. Having had enough negative vibes for one day, you pick the 19kg dead weight and carry it to the bus stop, hoping that it will remain in one piece until you reach your final destination.
You promise yourself to go and buy the cheapest suitcase you can lay your hands on after all; you are worth it!
