Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Add-on adventure in San Jose airport

This is a follow-up to my blog on anxious moments during travel. A couple of weeks back, I was in San Jose airport during the morning rush hour. The second floor has the line for security check - that usually goes all the way to the parking garage. Alongside security, there are also ticketing lines for folks with baggage, so the place is a real mess in the busy hours. This time around there were two lines, and since there are 2 security check points, it is natural for someone to assume both are security lines. So, I smartly stood in the shorter one, but something told me it wasn't the right one - people had bigger bags which was clearly not cabin luggage, and someone was kind enough to mention in a few minutes that it was the ticketing line and not security! Lucky me, I quickly moved over to the real security line! As the lines move forward, they cross over, so a TSA official allows folks in batches to the 2 security check points, as well allows another batch of people from the ticketing line to cross over to the ticketing area. The TSA guy yells and screams that ticketing line is to the left and security line is right, but it is hard to understand in the din or people are not listening but look for signs that don't exist, and it is too late in the queue! So, the guys who picked the wrong line and came to the crossover point got an earful from the TSA official -he was asking them if they can't hear him screaming, or if they can't tell Left from Right, before letting them get on the security check! No one wants to argue and miss their plane, so let's hope everyone gets lucky like me, or the TSA or Southwest guys post signs all along the lines.

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