Mind you, I do like Vienna Airport in Austria. It is a nice place which has managed to stay small in spite of becoming bigger. I also do fly from Vienna a lot and so perhaps it is unfair when I come with another story of a passenger handling hiccup… you know, big numbers and all that.
A while ago, I told you the story of SN flight 2908 and this time here is the story of SN 2906.
On arrival at the airport, I saw that the gate assigned to this flight was C31. In order to understand the circumstances, you need to know that in Terminal C of Vienna airport, they do security on a gate by gate basis. There are fair sized holding areas for each gate just off the main concourse and you access these via the well known metal detectors and X-ray machines for your hand luggage.
When I got to C31, they were processing the passengers for a flight going to Hamburg, departure time 17.35. On the monitor screen in the “Next flights” section, SN 2906 was shown with its departure time of 18.15. You needed good eyes to spot this information and clearly, passengers arriving at the gate had some trouble spotting their flight number. They were all confused by the big letters proclaiming that this was the gate for Hamburg (and also Brussels if you looked close enough…).
For me, those small letters spelled disaster. At 17.20, the last of the stray Hamburg passengers were still rushing through security and there was obviously no way for the flight to push back on time and vacate the gate for the incoming Brussels Airlines Avro RJ100. But apparently the guys allocating the gates were more optimistic than me…
When the Brussels Airlines gate agents arrived, they told the security folks to start accepting also passengers to Brussels and for a time, Hamburg and Brussels were being mixed in the holding area, only increasing the general confusion.
I always carry a flashlight in my backpack and the security agent insisted on checking it. He did not ask why I needed a flashlight. Sometimes they do and when I tell them this can be a real life saver in the woods on a cold winter night, they look at me with strange eyes…
Repacking the flashlight and putting my belt back on, I posted myself near the exit doors to make sure I would be among the first on board. You have to be there in time to make sure you have a place for your gear in the overhead bin. The RJ100 is not exactly generous in this respect.
Looking up at the monitor screen, I saw that the city shown had now changed from Hamburg to something else, I don’t remember what exactly, with the small letters saying that there was a gate change for SN 2906. It was now C34… This gave a whole new meaning to the old wisdom of always reading the small print.
In a moment the gate agent announced the change and we were told to proceed to Gate C34. There was a strange feeling of deja vue and perverse pleasure as I walked through the metal detector backwards, triggering read lights and alarms like you never see in normal operations.
But the fun was only starting.
It is only a few steps from C31 to C34 and we arrived there together with the SN gate agents, two lovely young things obviously keen on getting their flight back on time after this screw-up. They looked around in exasperation… you have guessed it: the security station was not manned!
My, my I thought. Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) at Vienna was once again failing, just as it did last time when flight 2908 was being kicked around in a similar fashion.
One of the girls got on her cell phone and after about 5 minutes a guy sporting a high visibility vest with Security written on its back appeared and switched on the X-ray machine. Satisfied, he promptly left (probably to sanitize the holding area…I guess). The girls were getting desperate again, they needed to get inside and go to their desk to start the usual routine… but still there was no security personnel, only the X-ray machine, with the belt running empty.
And then it happened. One of the girls threw her badge and other detachable parts on the belt and walked through the detector. Nothing happened. So, she picked up her things and went to the desk in the (supposedly) sterile area. The other girl was less lucky. The metal detector started to scream… She came back and went through again… red lights and alarm… a third try produced the same result. On the fourth, she took off her shoes smartly, placed them on the X-ray belt and went through the metal detector barefoot… this time there was no alarm. She picked up her shoes on the other side and joined her colleague at the desk.
All this happened in plain sight of a planeload of passengers who, I am sure, have made a mental note of how the serious business of passenger screening can be turned into a joke. If this can happen in Vienna, how many other airports in Europe experience the same lax attitudes when the normal process is disturbed by something as minor as a screw up in gate allocation?
In time we were processed through security and in the end, we took off with only 15 minutes of delay. Not bad for the circumstances. Oh yes, one other thing. The new security detail did not query my flashlight…
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