Thursday, June 13, 2013

Hello USA, Goodbye Efficiency


Usually it takes The Frau at least 10 minutes to begin swearing at U.S. inefficiency upon arrival in her home country. On her most recent trip, it only took 30 seconds.

She’s either becoming more and more Swiss or the U.S. is becoming more and more inefficient, she isn’t sure which.
Waiting for a half hour after a ten hour flight

Within 30 seconds of her SWISS flight landing (on time, of course) at Chicago’s O’Hare airport on May 24, the captain came on to announce that the airport had no gate for the plane as well as no gate for several other planes that had arrived before, so everyone would be sitting on the runway until the airport could begin giving planes gates.

The Frau rolled her eyes. But Baby M, being even more Swiss than The Frau since she was born in Switzerland, was even less pleased at such inefficiency. So she screamed at the top of her lungs for the entire half hour the plane sat on the runway.

The Frau tried to explain to Baby M that she was now in another country—her own—and therefore she’d need more patience for anything requiring synchronization or efficiency, but Baby M didn’t care. She thought five hours was enough time to be on a plane—let alone 10, with another half hour thrown in for fun courtesy of ORD—so she refused to calm down.

The Frau couldn’t really blame her. Her wails seemed to echo the feelings of every other passenger as if to say, “Giving a plane a gate. How has this become rocket science for American airports?”

Have you experienced inefficiency at an airport lately?

7 comments:

Allison L said...

Ironically, I had my most efficient international arrival into ORD ever. Flew in from Mexico on a Satuday after 5pm. All the jumbo jets from Europe have mostly landed by this time. Leaving a very empty customs line. :) And plenty of gates to deplane.

Have a nice visit.

Anonymous said...

Try the Lisbon airport and you will know what is inefficiency...

Made in Suisse said...

Oh dear, I can only wonder how Baby Suisse will be able to cope with French/British life when we will eventually settle back there...

Hattie said...

Poor little thing. And poor mom!
I hope the rest of your vacation is more restful.

swisssidejewelleryetc said...

Oh dear! Poor her..and poor you! Hope the rest of the trip was OK.

Paul said...

I think it's different airports, rather than a national thing. JFK and Heathrow are two of the worst, mainly because they are trying to deal with more flights than they can cope with.

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