Airport queues. The bane of travelers everywhere. Once, airport queues were very small, only being present when boarding an aircraft, now, you can expect up to four queues at the airport, for one journey! But that is not the issue… Many people have complained that the queues themselves are getting far longer, but is that entirely the case?
Airport queues are indeed getting longer. As a collective, we are flying more, which means there are more flights in and out of airports. And airports cannot keep up with this increase in air travel, as they simply don’t have the funding necessary. This leads to longer airport queues, whether at passport control, security, or physically boarding the aircraft!
How have airport queues gotten so much longer?
The queues themselves have gotten far longer over recent years, there’s no two ways about it. Our guest contributor Alexander is a frequent flyer, and pilot. He said regarding this:
Yes, the queues we see at airports are increasing wholesale. When I first started [as a pilot], we usually only saw long queues on peak days such as before Thanksgiving and before Christmas. Now, I see longer airport queues on regular travel days.
It’s the airports if you ask me. I’ve been to airports in the UK, US, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Turkey, Korea and the UAE. They all have the same problem. There just isn’t the necessary amount of personnel and machinery to safely carry out security checks.
If airports saw an increase in funding, or allocated more funding towards increasing staff and machinery, we’d see these issues reduce.
We then asked him if he’d seen any queues that we on the tarmac, with passengers waiting to board the aircraft itself, and he said:
Yes. On one occasion, my airline had my captain and I fly into Milan airport. Opposite from where we were stationary, was a Ryanair flight that was preparing to board. There must have been around 120 or so passengers in a queue, waiting to get aboard the aircraft.
On another occasion, I was walking through a major Turkish airport, when I saw the queue for a United Airlines 787 flight. As a 787 pilot myself, I know how long these queues usually are. I don’t know if it’s United’s system, but they seemed to have way more people than the aircraft.
Are there any ways to avoid airport queues?
It is quite difficult to avoid these queues. Many travel blogs have an abundance of tips on how to avoid these queues. There are also some apps out of Silicon Valley that allow frequent flyers to know which queues are the longest or the shortest. The only real downsides to these apps are that, they often aren’t free, and/or that they only cover a certain amount of airports in any one given nation.
As a general rule, you can’t escape these without being arrested.
Alexander did talk about a few ways that you can reduce your time:
Stand there, find something to do. Often the calmest passengers are those who have done something during the queues. Reading is often the best thing to do, as it takes your mind off the time you are spending at the queues, although these only tend to work if you’re alone.
Talking is often another good thing that you can do. Most calm passengers talk to those around them, whether it’s those in front or behind them in the queue. It can be on anything- plans for when they get to their destination, general aviation, life, or literally anything. It’s all about making the time seem to pass quicker than it really is, not physically reducing the time.