Friday, August 17, 2007
I heart heathrow
I never thought I'd say that, but over the years I've learned to loath JFK airport, and this week has only deepend the emotion. When I landed on Monday it took an hour and a half to get through immigration. Despite having a huge arrivals hall and over 30 officers running queues, it's just horrid. They take over 10 minutes to process each person. Well, except for me. Us Canadians get treated like honourary yanks and have minimal controls (don't even have our pictures taken), it just took that long to get to the front of the queue!
Last night? I had to do the very simple jouney from New York to Boston. Its a 35 minute flight. It just took forever to get off the land. First, Delta Airlines. You arrive and it takes a minute to check in with one of their machines, then half an hour in a queue to drop off your luggage (oh for the days when you could have two pieces of carry on luggage).
Then, I'd been "identified" as a random security check. This usually doesn't happen. I'm far too nondescript and modestly respecitble to get a second glance. Not yesterday though. Everything got checked. I half expected to be told to pull down my trousers and bend over. Blimey.
We were on time boarding, but then it took an hour, a whole hour, for the plane to get in the queue for the top of the runway to take off. Horrid. At the other end, in Boston, even though the arrival gate was a two minute walk to the luggage thingy, it took a half hour for the luggage to arrive. I would have quite happily climbed up the ramp and helped to unload if it would have made a difference! We were the only flight at that time of the night.
I won't ever complain about Heathrow again. Promise.
Last night? I had to do the very simple jouney from New York to Boston. Its a 35 minute flight. It just took forever to get off the land. First, Delta Airlines. You arrive and it takes a minute to check in with one of their machines, then half an hour in a queue to drop off your luggage (oh for the days when you could have two pieces of carry on luggage).
Then, I'd been "identified" as a random security check. This usually doesn't happen. I'm far too nondescript and modestly respecitble to get a second glance. Not yesterday though. Everything got checked. I half expected to be told to pull down my trousers and bend over. Blimey.
We were on time boarding, but then it took an hour, a whole hour, for the plane to get in the queue for the top of the runway to take off. Horrid. At the other end, in Boston, even though the arrival gate was a two minute walk to the luggage thingy, it took a half hour for the luggage to arrive. I would have quite happily climbed up the ramp and helped to unload if it would have made a difference! We were the only flight at that time of the night.
I won't ever complain about Heathrow again. Promise.
