If you’re ever tasked with designing an efficient and customer friendly international airport, I have some advice for you. Get on a plane to Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt, examine everything they do in minute detail, assess and analyse all their systems – and then do completely the opposite. You won’t go far wrong. There may be a better way, which I’ll come back to in a moment, but first I want to tell you about something I discovered as I took my seat on the way out there…
Prior to last years Paralympics, aeroplanes were specially adapted to transport amputees to London as cost effectively as possible. After the games, Thomas Cook bought these aircraft, and are now using them to fly holidaymakers to the sun. How do I know?
Because that’s the only explanation I can offer for why, on the flight to Egypt, there had been no provision made in my seat for someone with legs. I’m pretty confident that if you were to transport sheep or cattle for five and a half hours in such confined conditions, it would contravene a number of European regulations. People with scruffy beards, coloured hats and thick knit sweaters would be demonstrating in the streets. But this wasn’t sheep, it was people – some of whom were scousers – so clearly far less important. As I tried to wrestle the seatbelt from under my left buttock, the safety demonstration and ‘friendly chat’ from the captain did little to lift my spirits.
Now I understand why they have to tell you about the brace position and the exercise’s it’s advisable to do to avoid a DVT (and more importantly, mitigate an expensive lawsuit for Thomas Cook). But don’t just tell me about it. Show me! Come and sit in the seat you have sold me at great expense, and demonstrate how I can adopt the brace position without headbutting the headrest on the seat in front. Show me how I can flex and rotate my ankles and calves when my lower half is wedged in position tighter than chicken legs in a vacuum pack. Show me how I can “Sit back, relax and enjoy the flight” when my arms are pinned to my sides and my testicles are locked in a thigh sandwich.
Don’t just talk about it. Show me…in my seat!
Anyway nobody was going to show me. Nor were they going to explain why they were supplying me with a life jacket rather than a parachute, which to my simple brain seems far more useful. And so I resigned myself to several hours of discomfort and irritation, only to be punctuated by interruptions from cabin crew selling junk food, scratch cards, cigarettes and all manner of other crap I neither needed nor wanted.
I’m not a nervous flier – I’m really not – but I don’t think you’re human if the threat of terrorism doesn’t at least flash across your brain at some point when you fly these days. That point for me came when I saw the passenger sitting directly in front of me. Now I know you shouldn’t stereotype people or pre-judge, but I’m being completely honest with you here. Have you ever seen a photograph in a newspaper of a suicide bomber or terror suspect? Do you have an image in your mind of what that person looked like? Well this guy looked exactly like that, and he appeared to be travelling alone.
I quickly dismissed the thought as ridiculous, only to have it re-emerge as we thundered down the runway. Because it was then that he started to pray. Was he a bit nervous about the flight, was it just that time of day, or was there something more sinister happening? I didn’t really have too long to contemplate that because it was then that something happened which catapulted straight into my Top 10 Embarrassing Moments Chart, a position for which I can assure you, there is much competition.
You see, I’d taken a fresh bottle of water on to the plane and decided to open it. The top was one of those plastic caps over a stopper which pulls out slightly to allow some fluid out. I think they’re called sports caps. Anyway, what I’d failed to take into account is that pressure had now built up inside the plastic bottle because of the altitude. What happened next almost appeared in slow motion. As I released the stopper, a fountain of water spurted out of the bottle over the seat, and on to the head of my friend who was praying in front of me.
There are times in life where words don’t come easily, and explanations are hard to conjure up. This was one of those times. By this point my wife and daughter were helpless with laughter, as was a girl sitting opposite who had watched the whole thing unfold. The fellow praying was less amused. He spun round, water still dripping comedicaly from the end of his nose. My garbled apology accompanied by much pointing at the bottle and shrugging of shoulders did little to help the situation. He scowled, mumbled something I didn’t quite catch, and returned to his prayers.
It’s one thing to pour your drink down the neck of a stranger in a pub (yes I’ve done that as well) but at least you can leave. Your exit options at 35,000 feet are limited. I consoled myself with the fact that I’d never see him again after we left the plane. That prediction proved inaccurate. When we arrived back at the airport a week later for the return journey, he was already there. Next in the queue.
Well when I say queue, I mean one of the queues. You see, the people at Sharm El Sheikh airport have done something I didn’t think possible. They have added an additional queue on top of the one to check in, the one for passport control, the one for security and the one to get on the plane. They have a special queue, just to get into the airport – or to be more accurate, they have several queues to get into the airport – and each one moves very slowly.
I quickly decided that we should select a different queue from my dampened friend and by way of reward, spent twenty minutes talking to a woman from London who was in Egypt trying to save and repatriate some badly treated ducks. My only experiences with a duck have always involved pancakes and Hoi Sin sauce, a fact that I judiciously decided not to share. So it was a fairly one sided conversation.
When we eventually got to the front I discovered that this was a preliminary security check on luggage. I hoisted the cases on to the scanner, they went through without incident and I picked them up, at the other side. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be too bad after all. My optimism proved to be short-lived, as I looked up and saw the horror coming next.
To be strictly accurate this wasn’t a queue at all in the sense that you or I might understand it. To my mind, one of the key elements of a queue is some semblance of order and hierarchy. You know where you’re heading and who’s in front of you and who’s behind. This was more of a scrum of people and cases, none of whom had any idea where their check in desk was or where they were supposed to go. To add to the confusion, there were several other queues of people in the same building, These zig zagged through the check in queues and turned out to be various tail ends to a quarter mile long queue for passport control which then snaked into the next building. To complete the sorry picture, none of the luggage belts appeared to work and airport staff were frantically yelling at each other over the heads of the crowd.
I assumed there must be a problem, and that this was unusual. The bloke in front put me right. “This is good,” he said “It took twice as long last year. Everyone was fainting At least they drag you out and take you straight through if that happens.” I contemplated a contrived collapse but quickly discounted the idea. Given the efficiency I’d witnessed so far, it seemed perfectly possible that an airport fainter might easily wake up in hospital having undergone an exploratory operation for haemorrhoids.
I won’t catalogue the next hour and half (which eventually culminated in us arriving hot, sweaty and exhausted in a departure lounge entirely devoid of anything you would want to eat, drink or buy) but it wasn’t fun. I thought all airports had places where you can buy books, magazines and newspapers but I was quickly disabused of that notion. We slumped into some hard plastic chairs and looked up at the departures board….just in time for our flight to click over from ‘On Time’ to ‘Departed’. A ripple of mild concern filtered through the lounge.
As we sat there, clueless and broken, our misery was compounded by a crackly and indistinct soundtrack of almost continuous tanoy announcements in broken English. Each one was a ‘last call’ for some passenger or other who had failed to board their flight. You didn’t have to be Hercule Poirot to figure out where these people were. They hadn’t got carried away with the airport shopping experience. Nor were they sipping a skinny latte in the café. No, they were stuck somewhere in the same sweaty hour and a half long queue we’d just survived. I mumbled to no one in particular that if the tanoy announcer got off his arse and went down to the queue, he’d have a lot more success in rounding up these passengers.
Meanwhile our flight was still officially listed as ‘departed’, and we listened intently for news, straining to catch each indistinct message. Eventually the tanoy fired up with a new voice, clearer louder and more distinct than the previous one. This sounded promising. Something important was about to be said.
“Ladies and gentlemen…Ladies and gentlemen…to whom it may concern…we have an imporrrrtant announcement…an imporrrrrtant announcement. Can I have your attention please?”
There was a pause as we waited for news of our flight. Had it left by mistake? Would it be coming back to pick us up? We were about to find out. Or rather we weren’t…
“We have found a greeeeey cardigan…a greeeeeey cardigan. If anyone has lost a greeeeey cardigan, please come to the security desk and pick it up. Thank you.
Mr ‘Greeeey Cardigan’ returned to the tanoy twice more during the next few minutes, imploring the owner of the sorry garment to come forward (I felt like claiming the bloody thing myself by this point just to shut him up) before someone decided that the flight hadn’t departed at all and was in fact delayed instead. It’s an easy mistake to make, clearly, since both words begin with ‘d’.
When we eventually got clearance to board an hour or so later, I’ve seldom been happier to get on an aeroplane. It may have been my imagination, but the seat seemed bigger and the cabin crew less annoying. Even the ‘suicide bomber’ looked like what he was – a bloke from Bolton on his holidays.
I can recommend Sharm el Sheikh (particularly when it’s snowing in England) , but not its airport. It’s a relatively new and modern terminal and you have to wonder what possible reason they can have for running such a disorganised and shambolic operation. And that brings me to the point of this rant, other than to vent my spleen…
Whatever business you’re in, there are usually others operating in the same field. Some of them will be operating successfully, and some less so. I don’t know which international airports are generally perceived to be the best run and passenger-friendly, but if you’re in that business, surely you would know something like that. So what’s the obvious thing to do? Look at what the best are doing differently, and seek to emulate it. In many businesses (and an airport is one of those) what they’re doing is on show for all to see. It’s valuable free information, so why not use it?
If you find that your competitors have an edge over you – perhaps they have more of the market or the reported customer experience is better – you have a foolproof way of finding out what they’re doing. Visit their premises or become a customer. If you’re thinking of starting in competition, you could even go a stage further and work for them and learn the secrets from the inside. Examine what they do and how they do it. It’s free information which you can use to improve your own chances of success.
The important thing to realise is that you don’t have to learn from scratch by trial and error. Others have already paved the way for you to follow. But ignore the path they’ve created and you’ll make things far more difficult for yourself than they need to be.
I’m not sure whether the people who designed the systems at Sharm have ever visited another airport. Maybe they haven’t, because that would involve taking a flight.
And paradoxically, that could be too much to bear!
* My latest book ‘Why Didn’t They Tell Me? – 99 Shameless Success Secrets They Don’t Teach You At Eton, Harrow Or Even The Classiest Comprehensive’ is now published. Go to www.streetwisenews.com/why for full details.
Brilliant piece of writing. Lol as they say.every word rang true. How the hell do these airports get away with it? And airlines? Because we’re too apathetic to complain,i guess.
Ive given up flying and use the train now. Try it!
I would, but it’s a long way on a train to Egypt!
The airlines get away with it because most customers place price head and shoulders over every other consideration. Many would travel in the cargo hold if they could save fifty quid. I assume the airports can get away with it because customers have no choice if they want to use the planes.
However, you do have a choice where to go (there are other hot and sandy locations where you can hole up in a hotel for a week and never leave it) and if I was in charge of tourism for Sharm, I’d be working to get the airport as user friendly as possible.
Oh God! I’ve got a Ryanair flight coming up. I’d been trying to forget about it and now you’ve brought the impending horror to mind!
I would never book Ryanair, but at least you know what you’re getting with them – as little as they can get away with within the law. They make no pretence of caring about customer satisfaction or comfort….yet they’re successful. Curious, and further evidence of the priority placed on price.
John, being a Yorkshireman myself, I’m on the same wavelength and must have enjoyed your article, as I couldn’t stop laughing from beginning to end.
Wonderful and (sorry) a really good laugh at your expense. Hope you are over it now!
Anyway it’s certainly put me off going to Sharm el Sheikh even though my friend says its wonderful. I can do without the hassle.
Cruises are one of the best ways to travel, no hassle at the airport because they have special check in desks, your luggage turns up in your cabin and whilst you enjoy a wonderful meal and show etc each night you are transported effortlessly to a different city every morning.
Yet again you have given me SUCH a laugh…and also reminded me why my husband and I decided many years ago that the best place to holiday was here in the UK. I confess however to feeling ever so slightly deprived of the experience of throwing a bottle of water over a potential bomber. Never mind. Perhaps when we eventually find our way to Bolton perhaps we shall avail ourselves of the opportunity.
Thanks again
Barry R
We gave up going anywhere by plane several years ago. We have taken holidays in the UK. Our most inventive was to stay at home and use the saved cost to indulge ourselves in the luxury of top local restaurants, the theatre and local health spa…. Try it…. It’s our way of voting with our feet. After reading your article I am thinking of disposing of my TC shares or are there enough idiots out there to keep driving the price higher than their cramped planes. Cruises are great but I don’t believe in paying so much hard earned cash to be sick. It was the Bay of Biscay that did it for me. The alternative is a fly cruise Ha Ha
I think it was Thomas Cook that I flew back from Tenerife to Doncaster/Sheffield (so called) about 3 years ago. For the last hour or so of my flight, squashed in an aisle seat near the front of the aircraft, I had the “pleasure” of numerous people presenting their backsides to me whilst waiting for the toilet.!Having got out of that experience, it then took Doncaster/Sheffield about an hour and a half to get my hold luggage to me, all of about 100 yards or less! I think 2 planes had arrived around the same time! AVOID! AVOID! Thomas Cook airlines and Doncaster/Sheffield airport that is, NOT Tenerife!
Ah yes, it was at Robin Hood where I was delayed for 4 hours on a flight to Portugal because the pilot dropped his mobile phone in to the pedals and nobody could get it out. It made The Sun, that one, I seem to remember.
This nearly brought tears to my eyes. Funny and well believable. Sharm el Sheikh airport is an experience that all air travellers should try. However, it’s not unique? Mumbai (Bombay) airport is broadly similar apart from two important facts. The airport lounges are largely reminiscent of an early 70’s municipal bus station on a saturday night with uniformed personnel(mostly adolescent) nervously pointing loaded rifles at the queues. The non-locals (Europeans)were allowed to quietly shuffle along in the queue whilst obviously local people were often prompted to move up with a nudge from a rifle butt(as ex-military I found this quite disturbing). Having stood about for about 2 hours a visit to the gent’s was needed. This is another experience- as you walk in to be met by a lady sat at a table in the gents (in full view of the activities) dishing out pieces of toilet paper in exchange for a few rupees. Then you have to locate the cubicle with the European toilet which is the one with a couple of dozen other passengers are queuing up to use. Never again will I complain about Manchester Airport????????
India is somehere I have avoided for these very reasons. Were you at least curious to know what horrors lay behind the doors of the non European toilet?
We actually flew back into Manchester from Sharm. It’s an airport I hate, but it somehow felt so well-ordered and serene after what we’d just left.
Very funny John – maybe you will take a private flight next time…
But for those of us who have to watch every penny, I don’t mind the inconvenience of flying – the life changing experience of flying half way round the world for 50 quid, more than compensates. As they say in America – suck it up!
I’m doing alright – but not private jet alright!
I wouldn’t mind if it had cost fifty quid. You get what you deserve if you pay that. But it was full price.
Great article John;
We travel to Portugal regularly, book our flights well in advance to get a great deal and usually have a good experience with the airlines.
A couple of years ago, our house was flooded and we had to move out for a few months. – My wife decided that we would go to Portugal, and booked last minute the only flights available from some obscure website.
Bearing in mind that we she paid at least double what we normally pay; imagine my horror when it turned out we were flying with Ryanair!!
The baggage allowance was less than our suitcases weigh empty, some of our hand luggage was too large and we were left at check in emptying / re-allocating our luggage around the family. – It was totally humiliating!
The overall experience made flying with Easyjet feel like a 1st class BA flight.
Never, ever, ever, under any circumstances will I ever board a Ryanair flight ever again!
Have to admit that I find the fact that Ryanair is successful to be depressing…but instructive at the same time. It tells you that low prices trump a good product or service for a significant proportion of the population. Put another way, people will put up with any amount of crap if the product or service is cheap enough.
Ditto Ryanair. So much so that to avoid them we (I) decided to drive/ferry to mid France. We (her) got lost avoiding the M25, missed the turn for the south coming out of Caen ended up 60 miles towards Paris before we could get off the bloody Peage. Had a very relaxing week at a friends farmhouse. Arriving back in Caen got a text from Brittany Ferries, saying “On strike, just pop up to Calais, your ticket will get you across to Dover, and you can have £50 for the trouble, and half your ferry fare back” (Almost a “win”) Further wrong turns, and “country miles” of driving found us begging a bed for the night with my wonderful cousin near Leicester, before getting home two days late and wrecked, never been so pleased to see the Angel of the North! But, Ryanair, we showed you!
I can sympathise with your experience John, however have you ever thought of taking an invalid or someone who requires a wheelchair with you or can fake being crippled ! My wife and I went to NZ for our daughters wedding a couple of years back together with our second daughter, her 5 month old son and a 23 stone crippled father-in-law. We never queued anywhere once found we were accompanying him. However I did have to climb over him to leave my seat, not an easy task when 67 years old, then. Mealtimes were a nightmare, when will airlines allow you to lock the seat in front until requested by the occupant to recline ! I had my dinner thrown down the front of me by an inconsiderate woman in front of me and my father-in-law require a block and tackle with a well placed crowbar to remove him from his seat to visit the loo. Our daughter was refused, on the return journey with ausie crew, to let the baby stay in the cot whilst sitting up, just” incase he was thrown out if the plane dropped suddenly due to turbulance”. Wow, if that happened we may all land in different seats imagine who you might land next to, your imagined terrorist perhaps. Therefore she had to eat her meal with the baby on her lap and feed him at the same time. Well done on the rant My sides were aching by the end of reading it John.
The NZ trip sounds pretty nightmarish, although as you say, having someone disabled with you can have its advantages. Reminds me of the 14 year old lad on Britains Got Talent last week who has cerebral palsey. He said they went to Disney and went straight to the front of all the queues. His sister turned to him after a few hours of this preferential treatment and said, “I’m so lucky to have you as a brother!”
Ryanair oh no! never again, just booking a return flight for 3 adults luggage and a wheelchair online took hours, Our well travelled hand luggage was too large for the measurement container (different size to other airlines methinks) and we ended up having to pay an extra £40, carton drinks bought at the airport was unceremoniously thrown in the bin by customs. The wheelchair was last thing on the plane along with someone else’s surfboard out bound flight, was also the LAST thing off the plane when we landed but the surfboard came off first, There was no water available on board to take medication (our drinks bought for that purpose were not allowed on the plane) despite reading in their bumf that water was most definitely available. One of the crew gave my mum some of his own water. The foot rest of the hired wheelchair had been damaged in flight which we had to pay the hire company to replace it.
Helpers at the destination airport zoomed my mum at what seemed like 50 miles an hour down a steep slope, and at 80 yrs old and with very limited mobility she was scared to death, and they expected us to tip them! I’ll never travel with them again! EVER. I can laugh now but at the time it was horrendous and spoiled the first couple of days of our holiday, and none of us were looking forward to the return flight
I have to confess, I originally checked out your blog because of the reference to “political correctness”. This is a topic that provides me with hours of entertainment and mirth, mainly because I regard it as a joke.
Had you not mentioned him in one of your replies, I would have made reference to the lad on Britain’s Got Talent, who in my opinion, (a) had a great sense of humour and timing, and (b) just happened to have a disability which he’s turned to an advantage!
Now, your “suspected bomber”. Have you considered the possibility that your suspicions may have been correct, and the only thing that saved you from being blown out of the sky (besides the prospect of him having to deal with 72 ugly virgins) was that he’d come to the conclusion that, “Why let them off lightly by ending it all for them? Let them continue suffering airport misery and flight torture!”.
Enjoyed your blog and some of the replies. I do have one question though that you probably won’t be able to answer, but which maybe Richard Vaughan-Davies “…given up flying and use the train now…” will be able to answer… Where exactly in the UK can I catch the train for New York?
You may be able to get to New York by train (well almost) via Russia/Alaska but it would be a long way and I suspect the Trans Siberian railway would present its own challenges! I had to edit your reply a little. The website you mentioned came up with some nasty security messages so probably best not to encourage visitors.
So funny! I tried to read this out to my husband but was laughing too much to make any sense.
Regarding the point you make about ‘bracing in your seat’ – I often think about this. How come this is not subject to ‘health and safety’ rules as if there was an incident and you had to carry out this manoevre you could possibly break your neck – or are they hoping it will finish you off quickly so you don’t claim?
Glad you enjoyed it. Since the brace position is impossible in some seats, it’s just a box ticking exercise…like the advice for if “we put down on water.” I’m not of a technical disposition, but I know one thing – fully laden passenger jets don’t “put down on water.” But I suppose it sounds better than “plunge into the ocean at 200 mph.”
It really does illustrate what some folks are prepared to put up for the sake of a ‘deal’ !
Mind you with all this printing of cash by the Governments, people will be more likely to plug for cheap and cheerful in future years because they won’t be able to afford other options.
John
I might have found this hilarious were it not for the fact that it is a pretty accurate description of my experience at Sharm airport earlier this year.
It came the day after some wonderful birthday celebrations. What a comedown!
the most amusing thing i have read for a while . i creased up at the bit with the thigh sandwhich, a brilliant description of the compressed conditions on most flights . i havnt been to sharmel but i have been to luxor twice ,similar thing with queues for queues .they seem to fluctate between being very strict and official to total chaos . but after all the moans you just have to put it down to experience . at least you had a very amusing tale to tell
Hurghada is just across the water from Sharm, and has less crowding, lower prices, and the BEST organised airport I have ever used. If you book with a tour company, they will also meet you at the airport (on the “danger” side of security, no less) and escort you through it all on the way out as well.
Strongly recommended for tourists.