Sheep on a 'plane

"I've got a great idea.." someone at Airport Operations must have said ".. instead of accurately displaying whether a flight is delayed, about to board, boarding, closed and so on, let's just have a computer work out when that should happen, and display that."

"So, like, 40 minutes before a flight is scheduled to take off, let's display that it's boarding"

"But will it be?"

"Dunno; probably not, but let's do that anyway. And then, say, 30 minutes before the spreadsheet shows take off, let's show 'Final Call'

"But won't that panic people into dashing through the airport to a 'plane that's not even boarding?"

"Yeah, probably'

"And won't this whole idea just make the lives of a couple of ground staff fractionally easier, for no other benefit?"

"Well, yes"

"And won't this lead to herds of passengers sweating their way through a crowded airport, panicking that their flight is going to go without them, when in fact it hasn't even started boarding yet?" 

"It might"

"And won't this lead to endless people mistakenly jumping to the front of the queue, causing chaos, in the mistaken belief that their flight is already boarded, when in fact they've just barged past 200 people who've been stood there fuming for 25 minutes?"

"Yes, it will"

"In fact, won't this whole idea just mightily piss off pretty much every passenger in the airport?"

"Yeah  ...  Fuck 'em"

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