Frankfurt, January 26
It cuts against the grain of the Teutonic character. Instead of steely no-nonsense efficiency, we see gross lethargy in moving people across terminals. Instead of promptitude in offering advice to those desperately in need of it, we get inconsistent messages, errors and utterances of sheer ignorance. This is the message from Frankfurt Airport, one of the industrialised worlds worst marked and governed aviation hubs.
The errors begin with a rather jaunty announcement by a cabin crew member that the flight from London is ahead of schedule. “You will have plenty of time to make your connecting flight. Take your boarding pass and head to the gate. That is all you need to do.” Sounds enchantingly simple.
The moment you touch down in the terminal, a bewilderingly poor set of signs start to manifest. There is a confusing grouping of gates under letters, though these are arranged differently. A, for instance, keeps company with Z. Having left from a gate with B, the question is how to reach the relevant letter without making some dangerous detour into any number of intrusive, routine and frankly bizarre screening points for luggage through the airport. It soon becomes clear that the fiends responsible for creating this airport intended constant screening to become an institution and a fetish.
One makes it through passport control without seemingly getting any closer to the relevant gate, a point not helped by the compressed, container quality of the halls. Instead of having the liberating interiors of breathing and clarity offered in such airports as Singapore’s Changi or Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi, we have sinister concentration and sclerosis.
The impression is worsened by various routine, if meaningless screening areas that are confusingly placed near exit gates, inviting people to offer their goods to be searched. The mistake then dawns, and the baggage items, having been neatly spread out on trays, must be reclaimed. “Hallo!” bellows a matronly battle tank, eager for battle and confrontation. “Halt!” exclaims another. Amidst the yacking and bellowing from this tribe of uniformed dolts, a member of the screening team with what seems to be subcontinental background inquires about the gate being sought. On being told it is A26, a sadistic thrill is noticeable in his demeanour.
You won’t make it.
That cannot be. We were told that it would be a smooth transfer to the flight for those with a boarding pass.
To go to A26, you need to go right out and take a train. It will take so long you will miss the flight. You could also walk. That would be VERY long.
After this hideous revelation, which said more about the fellow’s colossal ignorance than it did about any accurate movement to the gate, the journey continues, with panic levels rising, and sweat beads forming. The winter coats start to cloy and stick. This is the clamminess of fear and abandonment, the sense that the machine will be there leaving the gate as you turn up, helplessly frustrated by the very airport in which, supposedly, there was a vast amount of time to make it.
The signs become more bewildering, and there is yet another airport screening to go through. At this point, the Kafkaesque chill of bureaucratic idiocy and meaningless routine starts to manifest. Naturally, it is mandatory for all such staff to be curt and rude. Friendliness might be construed as weakness. Passengers are constantly called back and told to resubmit to screening, even as the staff banter and muse about what their own children are up to, or the latest football results. Patting of the body by the security personnel is particularly aggressive, almost to the point of being lecherous. Luggage is left to clutter the lines in solemn regret. Bags are routinely stopped to merely confirm what can already be seen on the X rays. The queues swell with mechanical terror.
Another dreaded fork in the road was then reached. This is where A26 might be in sight. Time is now critically short, as the boarding of the flight to Zagreb has already begun. At least, at this point, there is no suggestion that a train is required. But to get to the gate entails taking a poorly marked side exit to a lift or going through passport control again. Doing the latter would most certainly quash any real chance of making the flight.
When a humourless, burly airport staff member clearly cranky about his dinner was asked to clarify the right direction, the answer game with savage glee: “You have been in area A the whole time.” In other words: take the lift. The end is my beginning, and, with so much movement, so little had been gained.
The task now became one of rushing in winter shoes rather inadequate for the sprint. The sweating became torrential, the hair shedding moisture liberally. “Your gate is approximately 10 minutes away,” another, no doubt mendacious sign says on route. In the faint distance, the ground staff and irritated crew are still waiting. With the flight boarded, the drenched layers of jackets and overalls are peeled off. And Frankfurt’s airport can be abominated for the horror that it is.
Also by Dr Kampmark: Funeral Atmospherics at the British Library
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