You might take by surprise why this post on InI. As you all know I post many articles related to regular life of a student. I consider my readers one or the other day will travel abroad on assignments form companies they work for. It’s a good idea to know what we have during air travel and whats missing big time.
I have been traveling for last 10yrs by air and could not see any major change when it comes to traveling as such. Just a few new airports with extended terminals and a bit better shopping and dining facilities during transit came up. Those definitely helpful but could make a big difference in travel as such.
Few days before I decided to take a vacation and travel back to home for some leisure time. Every place I stood was thinking why these facilities don’t have an automated approach even in some of the world’s best airports.
Right form check in, there is a web check in but not enough counters to drop baggage quickly and move. What is needed is a simple baggage drop in by passengers without a single staff from airline. It should be as simple as drop the baggage on conveyer belt and snap stickers on it and move towards security and immigration.
There are such a big lines during security and immigration checks taking almost an hour or more. This is worst on some of the busiest airports in the world. I was coming from Incheon Airport and had to stand over and hour in queue for security clearance. I think this process can be easily automated with cameras and automated scanners, which we usually do in our offices.
Another big hurdle after security checks is immigration process itself. We will have to stay in a queue again where an officer verify passengers identity and stamps on passport. This process can be easily automated and should be tried asap to save a lot of time and efforts.
Lastly, there should be Internet on board, with travel distances over 15hrs or so we can get some work done during the flight time. If not work at least we complete some of the communication work done and talk to someone we least connected with due our busy schedules. Can also compile and send few mails.
I believe with all these improvements in place we can save a lot of time and make our long air travels more productive and happy.
If you some of you civil engineers or mechanical engineers propose these ideas to your bosses and companies we can dream of having a comfortable air travel in couple of years.