I don’t know why we’re so bothered. We Brits are famously good at queuing, so the international arrivals gate is a chance to show off what we can do. It might catch on, and everyone could learn how to queue. It would be our greatest gift to the world.
I’m not sure I’d benefit from the e-gate access. I have the kind of generic face that causes problems with airport facial recognition software. Even I’ll admit I look like every e-fit of a thug you see in newspapers, so it’s no wonder the system wants to run a few checks before it lets me in.
Even if we get this special gate access I think I may never fly again. Another change to aviation was mooted this week. Some plane manufacturers have looked at two-tier seating. That sounds like I’m going to make a comment about Sir Keir Starmer’s legal system. As if I would!
It’s not even a plan to have two levels like a double-decker bus. The plan is to have alternate rows of seats set at different heights. Obviously the motivation behind this isn’t about the passengers’ comfort; it’s about finding a way to cram more people in to make more money for the company. If they could have us lying in tubes, head to feet like the grandparents in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, they would.
There was instant pushback. Many people have spotted that if the seat part of one row is at the eye-level of the row behind it, you have a direct path to the wind of the person in front. It’s not an idle threat because the slightly lower air pressure while at high altitude means we’re all more likely to have a little bottom burp. If you’re sitting on the lower row, that will be what you’re breathing. You’ll be praying for the oxygen mask to drop to get you a break.
Due to denser air sinking, the people on the bottom row really get the worst of it.
It will earn the companies more money, but they will have to spend more on the sick bags we all get through.
In researching this I learned that air on a plane is recycled, so even without these seats you’re breathing in the gaseous output of everyone else on that flight. This two-tier seating system simply speeds it up. Now that’s progress.
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