Slowly, Britain’s airports are beginning to clear the backlog. Fewer flights are being delayed, piles of luggage are being cleared and would-be passengers are spending less time locked out of the terminals. But the backlog of questions and complaints is not diminishing. The security regime and the regulations seem to change by the day. There is still confusion among passengers and airline staff, and an appalling lack of information. And there are growing suspicions that the emergency measures are inconsistent and ill-considered.
The inconsistencies are glaring. The new restrictions on hand luggage apply to all flights leaving from British airports. But they do not apply to passengers flying to Britain, even on British airlines, except from the US. Why is it deemed safe to buy water from airside shops to drink on flights to Europe but not on flights to America? Why is it now safe to carry hand luggage 35cm high but unsafe to carry any 45cm high, permissible last week?
The airport authorities say they are coping “magnificently” with the new regulations. But although there may be some easing of the time-consuming searches, many restrictions will remain in place for months, and will change the pattern of air travel. The biggest inconvenience is the limitation on hand baggage. There are warnings that this will drastically affect business travel, as executives in a hurry refuse to queue at carousels, and have not yet learnt how to pack their overnight needs in smaller cases (there is clearly a market here in foldaway suits and inflatable shoes). But predictions that business people will instead take trains to Europe or turn to video-conferencing are exaggerated: although business travel in America fell sharply after 9/11, it recovered within a year.
More lasting will be the effect on budget airlines. Some, for example, have been struggling to hold down costs by discouraging all but carry-on luggage and charging for each case checked in. That policy must now be reversed — and either air fares will rise, narrowing the budget carriers’ price advantage, or baggage handling charges must be increased.
There is a silver lining in all this, however. First, the inexorable rise in hand luggage has been halted — easing tempers in very congested cabins, which had come to resemble shanty towns. Every passenger knows the problem of those who insist on trying to stow bulky hand luggage, jostling and squabbling as they force it in the racks or squash it under seats, blocking aisles and holding up departure as cabin staff struggle to find space.
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Why should there not be a priority delivery service for premier-class passengers to reduce the time at carousels? Why not provide simple built-in laptops, able to take passengers’ memory sticks? Airports must also now spend more on security scanning. A body scanner costs £20,000 and a reliable explosives sniffer £60,000. There will now be an incentive to install more and speed up their operation — at present it can take about 45 seconds to scan each passenger.
They may also overcome the stigma of passenger profiling: those who fear that they will be singled out can volunteer to use the machines and avoid awkward and politically sensitive questioning. Air travel is so vital to today’s economies that airports and operators will be forced to innovate. Travelling will never be the same, and that could very well be a good thing.