Tims Times

The port wing of my second and final flight yesterday, the aircraft was a Fokker 70. The first plane was also a Fokker, a 50 though, and it felt like being on a Honda 50. According to my schedule I had an hour between planes, which is grand if you are on time and you only have carry on baggage. My first plane was late leaving. Subsequently I had only 40 minutes to get to my other flight, which of course was on the other side of Schipol Airport. So I had to do the walk-trot-half run across the long corridors and through the shopping area. Anyway I got to my plane, but the suitcase had to take a later flight, it not having legs and relying on the throwers to get it on the right wagon. But I got it in the end, safe and unmolested. On my way I met

Airport phenomenon#1 Aimless wandering. If you happen to be in a rush between two flights you will often encounter these types. Sightseeing tourists, marveling and the grandeur of the airport concourses and escalators. There should be shepherds to move these out of the way of

Airport phenomenon#2 People in a hurry. If you happen to be aimlessly wandering around the inside of an airport you will be undoubtedly knocked over by one of these people. They are often in symbiosis with

Airport phenomenon#3 Public Corporate bullshitters. If you happen to be aimlessly wandering, in a hurry, taking a leak, waiting for a plane, you will hear these types long before you see them. They most likely have a blue tooth headset and look like they are talking to themselves but are actually on the phone taking a kind of gibberish designed to confuse and annoy the normal members of the public. Phrases like “downsizing” “mission statement” “business paradigm” & other corporate bullshit can be heard among the other words in the loudest possible voice known to mankind. Of course corporate bullshit was invented to give these types something to say, because they don’t appear to have normal lives where they might have recourse to using English. As you protect your ears from being damaged you will probably see

Airport phenomenon#4 Cleaners. People dressed up as cleaners with utility trolleys filled with ALL the chemicals known on Earth in spray bottles. They don’t actually do any cleaning when anybody is looking, unless they see

Airport phenomenon#5 Supervisors. People wearing lots of mobile phones and radios which are usually switched on to the “white noise” channel with full squelch, they are weighted down with security passes and keys on extendable key fobs, and have a shiny white pale palour as they have never seen the light of day.These are dismissively ignored by the

Airport phenomenon#6 Air crew. The women are tall and skinny and look important, the men are all shapes and sizes but have the uniforms that have the gold or silver stripes around the arms and the hats of course. The women walk tall too, because they are probably too tall to stand upright in the plane while looking important and serving tea and coffee and the rest (my ticket said “meal unspecified” yum yum) so they need to stretch out while parading the concourse.

There are tons more phenomena associated with airports, not least the security and the check in desks or small kids driving their parents to distraction. They should have 2 queues going in, one saying “have you ever been at an airport before or flown on a commercial flight?” the other saying”is this your first time here? or are you completely insane and intend to wander aimlessly around getting in everybody else’s way?” Ah well at least I wasn’t heading for Casablanca yesterday.