For a long time, I have observed something peculiar about the world. Airports are like their countries. They are a microcosm of their nation in miniature with all the foibles and benefits, the good and the bad. Take Singapore. Simple, impressive, super efficient.The passport control sees you within 5 minutes of landing, by the time you have spent two minutes getting the stamps (or just scanned if you have the permit), your bag is already in front of you, on the way to the taxis, in a straight line. In over 20 years of visiting the island republic, I have never waited more than 10 minutes for a bag (at Heathrow, by comparison, my record is 2 and three quarter hours)- Taxis: there will always be a couple of hundred waiting for you. But now there is the MRT, (railway)as well as the aircon bus which will take you downtown for 40 pence.
And that's how Singapore is: it's fast, efficient, big, modern, clean. A breath of fresh air.
And when you arrive on the East coast parkway and get your first view of the financial centre skyscrapers, it's a wow sight. Your meetings the next day will be all faultless. You will get your business done, quickly, inexpensively and bloody well. Your commercial will be shot, processed, graded, edited, recorded, done and dusted within 4 days for the price of the shoot sandwiches in London.
Australia is a fortess whether you arrive in Perth, Melbourne or Sydney. But it's well designed, clean and new. The people are firm but friendly. It's a very long and slow immigration queue, then the customs service is very strict about wood, food and mud. Your journey thereafter will be variable past miles of billboards, Hungry Jacks (what Burger King are called in Oz) pool centres ( places where you can buy a pool), and hundreds of traffic lights as you re-enter the city proper. The drive from Singapore doesn't have any. Not until you get off the freeway.
Indonesia started off with very good intentions, but now has very quickly become dirty and mired with booths, lockup shops, giant ashtrays, a mess of a road system. You have to frequently use "irregular payments" to get through passport and customs, unless you have paid for the meet and greet service which speeds you through both. The Japanese always use it. That's a sign of things to come. The country runs on bakshish. There are triplicates, quadruplicates of every type of form, stamp, permit, licence. There is an airport tax and an exit tax, which has to be paid in cash. No exceptions. So that's Indonesia. Charming as they shake you down.
Now what about Britain? It's a mess. It's dilapidated. There's gaffer tape to cover the holes in the carpet (outside Garfunkels T3) on the passageway to the toilets. The car park is a mess.
And expensive. You know the rest. For non-EU passport holders the queue is an hour at best, sometimes two over hours, then when you come out, your bags are STILL not there. So Britain is a mess. The roads to the airports are a mess. Unless you are a VIP and you come out of the VIP Hillingdon suite. Then your driver can pick up up- then you have to endure the same clogged M4 to town. So it's dirty, badly run, but everyone believes it to be wonderful.
T3 is where most international flights arrive now and will continue to arrive for the next forseeable future. It is pathetic. The meeting area looks and behaves like Jakarta's- hundreds of taxi service staff waving placards saying "Mr Yamamoto" There are no seats with a view of the emerging people- through the rear of the duty free shop- a disgrace and a shambles. And that's the country- it puts up with so much crap in the everyday running of things, you forget how much better other countries have it. As some of my friends say "It may not be much, but it's British".
Please add the countries you know.
