Anyone looking to educate voters about how the private sector works better than the government might want to consider offering trips to Disney World.
Compare, for example, the company-run lines at Disney’s Magic Kingdom theme park with the government-run security lines at the Orlando International Airport.
On a family vacation in Florida last week, I waited in a 30-minute line to board a roller coaster called the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. The time flew by.
The sign at the beginning of the line telling me how long a wait to expect was accurate — maybe even a few minutes high, so that by the end I was pleased that the line had moved more quickly than I expected.
There were activities along the line — video games to play, kaleidoscope-projecting, gem-filled barrels to turn — to occupy impatient children and adults during the wait. The line moved through a series of different room-like spaces to give the feeling of progress.
We kept walking forward in line at a relatively quick pace, again giving the impression of advancement. Upbeat music played in the background. When there was information to be conveyed about the ride ahead, it came from a sign or a recording of a calm, confident, polished voice.
The airport was a totally different story. The wait at the TSA security checkpoint seemed designed to impose frustration rather than ease it. There was no sign telling us how long the wait was.
Instead, I was handed a sheet of paper with the handwritten time I arrived, and I was told to turn the paper in when I finally reached the metal detector so that the government could find out how long the wait is.
Disney knows how long its wait is and tells customers what to expect. The government has no idea how long its wait is and asks customers to help it find out.
In the government’s airport security line, there were no fun activities to entertain or distract those waiting. We were, however, forced by a federal agent to surrender a tube of sunblock we had inadvertently left in our carry-on luggage — the same tube that had been toted for days on crowded Disney rides, buses, boats and trains without posing any security threat.
Instructions in the airport line were conveyed by gruff, uniformed TSA agents who appeared to be bored and frustrated — work that easily could have been automated by a recording, as at Disney.
The airport security line moved excruciatingly slowly, in fits and starts. Sometimes it stopped arbitrarily as a TSA agent closed it off without explanation and allowed in passengers from another direction. When a passenger afraid of dogs panicked at a TSA canine, the agents rolled their eyes and appeared unsympathetic.
I finally put my shoes back on after passing through the metal detector about 20 minutes from when I had first entered the line. It was less time than the wait for the Disney roller coaster, but it felt like much more.
Nor is that disparity merely a coincidence. Disney is subject to the discipline of market competition and the incentive of profit. If customers have a miserable time waiting in line at the Magic Kingdom, they’ll take their next vacation somewhere else instead — maybe Club Med or SeaWorld, or Universal Studios. If the customers have a good time at Disney and come back or tell their friends about it, Disney will make more money, which means more profits for shareholders and a bigger compensation pool for employees and management.
The TSA isn’t really subject to either competition or profit discipline. If customers are fed up with airport security lines, they can take a train instead, but the train company, Amtrak, is government owned.
You don’t have to be Disney to get lines right. Even restaurant chains like Cheesecake Factory and Shake Shack give customers vibrating pagers to make waits more palatable.
Just imagine what your airport experience might be like if the TSA gave you a pager so you could shop or eat until it was your turn to make it through the metal detector.
Ira Stoll is editor of FutureOfCapitalism.com and author of “JFK, Conservative.”