To Texas . . .
This morning I left for Texas to visit family for the holidays. What has become of air travel? Yes, I am aware that fuel is expensive and that there are security concerns; however, it seems to me that airports are actually less secure, less efficient, and all the more so, confusing.
Upon my arrival at O'Hare International I got in line for the 'kiosk' . . . that's right, there is no longer a human to check you in, that went out years ago, and identity verification . . . it's all done using A) a credit card (yeah, those things are secure . . . nobody could get a hold of that information) and 2) verification of my destination.
The kiosk efficiently printed out my boarding pass at which point I was meant to somehow _know_ to migrate over to another desk where an attendant would check my identity and affix a tag to my baggage. Afterwards, I was instructed to walk my own bag over to the X-ray machine. After many attempts at finding the correct X-ray machine that would accepts my bag, a bedraggled skycap asked me to "just put your bags over there" next to all the other bags that had piled up at the security station. Was TSA around? Why of course not; rather, two exhausted looking skycaps were loading bags into the machine . . . at any point I could have grabbed a few of the bags and taken off with them, or perhaps put something inside of them. Sadly, no one was minding the store.
The entire process was terribly inefficient . . . no one knew where to go, there were no signs to assist the process, the hall was incredibly dirty and unorganized . . . and after I disrobed and passed security I realized that no one, at any time, had asked me the typical security questions: 1) have your bags been in your possession the entire time (uh, no . . . I left them over there in the middle of the hall with those two skycaps), and 2) did anyone ask you to carry anything for them on board (uh, no, but my bag is over there just sitting in the hall with no security around it, so I guess anyone could simply put anything in there if they wanted to do so.)
This process is unorganized, confusing, inefficient . . . and, consequently, insecure.
Upon my arrival at O'Hare International I got in line for the 'kiosk' . . . that's right, there is no longer a human to check you in, that went out years ago, and identity verification . . . it's all done using A) a credit card (yeah, those things are secure . . . nobody could get a hold of that information) and 2) verification of my destination.
The kiosk efficiently printed out my boarding pass at which point I was meant to somehow _know_ to migrate over to another desk where an attendant would check my identity and affix a tag to my baggage. Afterwards, I was instructed to walk my own bag over to the X-ray machine. After many attempts at finding the correct X-ray machine that would accepts my bag, a bedraggled skycap asked me to "just put your bags over there" next to all the other bags that had piled up at the security station. Was TSA around? Why of course not; rather, two exhausted looking skycaps were loading bags into the machine . . . at any point I could have grabbed a few of the bags and taken off with them, or perhaps put something inside of them. Sadly, no one was minding the store.
The entire process was terribly inefficient . . . no one knew where to go, there were no signs to assist the process, the hall was incredibly dirty and unorganized . . . and after I disrobed and passed security I realized that no one, at any time, had asked me the typical security questions: 1) have your bags been in your possession the entire time (uh, no . . . I left them over there in the middle of the hall with those two skycaps), and 2) did anyone ask you to carry anything for them on board (uh, no, but my bag is over there just sitting in the hall with no security around it, so I guess anyone could simply put anything in there if they wanted to do so.)
This process is unorganized, confusing, inefficient . . . and, consequently, insecure.
posted by geistweidt at 5:48:00 PM
2 Comments:
Hey, Jason, give me a call at 512-491-7162 if you are in the Austin area. ~Curtis
kick ass! i will ring you tomorrow.
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