Rose Cantine

I was in Boston for WiMax World last week and given my last experience flying in and out of Boston, I dreaded every moment. I was right; it’s no better this time.

Do NOT take the Silver Line

Getting to the airport from my hotel near the World Trade Center via the Silver Line, a rather optimistic sounding bus service, should have been a breeze, but it took 50 minutes and I almost missed my flight. You see the hotel personnel told me that the airport is only two stops away. Indeed when you look at the map, it’s just around the corner. Judging from the very professional look of the new bus terminal next to the hotel, which is underground and looks like a subway stop, I thought there would be buses every 10 or 15 minutes and I would be at Terminal C in 20 minutes at most.

I waited forever for the bus and it just crawled to the airport. The traffic was awful, there were no dedicated bus lanes and the bus was packed. If I had taken a cab from the hotel, it would have taken me 10 minutes. I am never again playing Russian Roulette with Boston airport transportation and least of all with the Silver Line.

Rude, crude TSA personnel

Logan Airport also provides the appropriate TSA personnel to enhance your Boston travel experience. In addition to yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs like their colleagues in other airports, Logan TSA people try to project the image that they are really doing something to ensure you security. And this is how they do it:

I checked in a little plastic bag with liquids. The bag went through the scanner and immediately, an alert TSA employee, no doubt keeping us safe from those nasty people told me that the little plastic bag was too big. Never mind that the same plastic bag went through San Francisco Airport’s security without any problems. So to make us feel that they are doing a spectacular job, they decided to confiscate a nearly empty bottle of contact lens solution. But they let the plastic bag through anyway.

When I said, “But this bag and all of its contents went through San Francisco with no problem,” the TSA guy retorted, “Yeah, but San Francisco is San Francisco.”

Yes, folks, don’t you feel so much safer now that airport security people in a single country can’t agree on standard procedures and even criticize their own colleagues in another city? By the way, the same little plastic bag filled with eye drops, lip gloss, hand creme and hair gel just sailed right through Houston’s airport, right in Bush country.

I love the Tyler Brule column in the Financial Times this weekend in which he rips TSA apart for the degrading manner in which they treat passengers:

“Having just witnessed a humiliating attack on a defenceless elderly gentleman at La Guardia airport, it’s time to create an enforceable charter of human rights for passengers and a tough set of standards that airports, airlines and affiliated businesses must abide by.”

. . .

“As the gentleman tried to collect his things and bundle them in his arms the security guard moved in closer. ‘Sir, this is a federal inspection area and you must move on. You must do so in the fastest manner possible sir!’ The man gently nodded but dropped a shoe in his haste and the barrage of passive-aggressive security-speak started over again. I motioned to go and help the man but he pulled himself together and then shuffled away to find a place to put on his shoes.”

“I immediately told the security man that terrorising people was not part of his job description. ‘Sir, you’re in a federal inspection area . . . “‘ he began. ‘. . . and as a result you’re a representative of the federal government and you’re not putting on the best face for Washington by abusing a man in his 80s,’ I retaliated.”

“Unfortunately, this scene isn’t limited to just the airports of the Port Authority but plays itself out all over North America, pockets of Europe, Australia and beyond. Passengers recognise the need for stricter security measures but with them have come a culture of belligerent behaviour that’s going unchecked by the security companies who win contracts, the airports that award them and the governments that are supposed to police the system.”