Travel should be about movement. But it’s also about queuing.
Today at Pisa Airport was a good experience. The queues for security and then passport control were 20 mins each… and the plane was only half an hour delayed.
What was nice was that the security and passport control lines continually inched along. I understand my own psychology well enough to know I prefer a 20 minute queue that shuffles along slowly.. to one where you stand stock-still for 10 minutes and then walk briskly for 5 to the end. Even though that would be faster overall.
This is why I never join the queue at the gate until they start boarding. Waiting motionless in line would nudge my stress levels skyward. You always get a few lurkers who sit tight before joining the dregs of the queue as the gate closes. I’m one of them.
Slow-moving queues I can live with. Going nowhere I can’t.
Andrew Greenhalgh 