127
Balshagray Avenue
Jordanhill
Glasgow
G11 7EG
10th January 2015
Tel : 0141 563 3002
Editor
Stornoway Gazette
10 Francis St
Stornoway
HS1 2XE
Dear Editor
Airport Chaos
I refer to the letter from T.
Kirkland (SG 8/1/15).
While I use airlines and
airports relatively infrequently by modern standards and cannot claim the
knowledge and expertise of your esteemed correspondent, I have flown in and out
of Stornoway Airport moderately often over the last 60 years, perhaps averaging
3 flights per year. About 200 in all. So very few.
Nor can I compete with
Kirkland’s expertise in comparing Stornoway with other airports. I have been in
and out of Karachi and Lahore airports a mere 20 times or so each; I have tried
Tashkent on some 16 occasions only; Belem in Brazil only 4 times; Beijing also
only 4 times; and Dushanbe only twice. On balance, Stornoway is my favourite,
although closely tied with Dubai.
As a Hebridean born in the
first half of the last century from parents who remembered the Wright brothers,
I am unable to comment definitively on questions revolving around an airport
having two equally functional runways or on the balance between manual versus
“high-tech” screening of passengers. But I do know that the issues are very
complex indeed.
I did however appreciate the
security guard at Stornoway Airport who one day insisted on combing through my
briefcase. “It contains only boring academic books” said I. He replied to me
sadly: “You should not think of it in that way, Mr Smith. That is what I
thought when I was young. And that is why I have ended up in this job.”
We can all get frustrated at
airports at times. But, on balance, I am glad to be away from the era when
British European Airways wound up the propellers of an ex-WWII Dakota in
Stornoway and pointed it in the vague direction of Balivanich, Tiree and
Glasgow.
Yours sincerely
Iain Smith
No comments:
Post a Comment