They've gone and messed up again
Just when I thought the air travel industry was starting to give something back, it's just screwed up again - in my eyes anyway.
Until today, recent flights I've taken, such as one from LHR to KUL and another from from LGW to SFO, were greasers: the bags came off the plane in little more time than it took me to get to the carousel, the outbound security queue getting on was fast because BAA has finally invested in more arches rather than more shops, and the planes were on time (more or less!).
But that was travel for business (albeit in steerage - ugh) and today I got back from a long weekend with friends in Holland. So we get to AMS security and the sealed jars of honey I carefully chose are confiscated - it hadn't occurred to me that they fall foul of this charade of a regulation about liquids. Of course, the grim-faced security nark wasn't interested in a discussion.
We got to LGW, where there was a smoke alarm problem, with hundreds of people hanging around in departures, going nowhere and looking pretty fed up. Trouble was I was in the north terminal and needed to get to the railway station at the south terminal in order to get home.
But, because of the situation, the monorail shuttle that runs between terminals wasn't working. Or rather, it was but it arrived and left having not opened its doors. No-one was available to say how long the shuttle would be out of action, nor why the it couldn't have been used to remove people from what was, presumably, a potentially dangerous situation.
Finally we got a bus, having missed our once-an-hour (on Sundays) train connection because it took as long to get from one terminal to another as it did to get to LGW from AMS. Instead of arriving home at about 1900, it was 2000, an hour late and without the souvenirs I'd bought.
So thanks to the airline industry for reminding me why, when I have a choice, I travel by car or train.