Problem
You are stuck forever in the queue at the airport. You are tired and your taxi driver is waiting. What to do?
Answer
The answer should be obvious but last time we went through Heathrow, despite having been through three or four airports in the past few weeks, we still forgot our strategy, so it's worthwhile making a mental note.
IDENTIFY SUITCASES WITH COLOURS AND PHOTOGRAPH
Before leaving home, identify your luggage. Try to buy a distinctive pattern or colour. Black is nicely anonymous. But colours are handy to deter thieves and identify your luggage fast.
Stick a large ribbon on the handle. Write a name of a person or place or even a large initial letter on the side of your case. Buy a set of luggage all the same colour so you can tell airport staff or other tourists, "Have you seen a suitcase same colour as this but smaller / larger?" Write a funny message on the bag, "Mine. Not yours. Contains left shoes. Contains right shoes."
Photograph your bag at home and print a picture. Photograph again in the departure hall. This proves you had it with you for insurance. Helps you find it. Reminds you the brand and colour if you are filling out a lost item form. Count your pieces of luggage, out of the door and into the taxi, out of the taxi, into the airport check-in.
PLAN FAST ARRIVAL
In the taxi, check your terminal to be sure you are dropped at the nearest door. You can check the airport layout on line. Also see if you get free trolleys, need a coin, or need money for the tip or fee.
GENERAL
1 Have your passport and ticket handy, so you can check check in counters on the board overhead.
Make sure you are not delayed before the queue trying to decide which queue you are eligible to join.
Be ready if you see a free counter.
At checkin and security you might get called or beckoned forward to the front of the queue at very busy times because staff know you and others have a connecting flight and little time.
CHECK IN DEPARTURE
Checking in at passport in the airport arrival hall, one of the family might be in business class, another on a redemption fare. If the lines are all busy, you must go to the correct line.
Keep your eyes open and smile at the smartly dressed girls or boys handling the queues.
If another desk is free, rather than leave you wearing behind somebody in economy with twenty bags, you might be beckoned forward to the business class or even first class desk even if it's the first class or business and only your partner is business and you are not.
BOARDING
a) In the departure lounge, you might get priority boarding and be eligible to go first onto the plane if you are business, with children, with a disabled person.
b) After that some airlines board by row and call out Seats 1-20. So you need your ticket handy to check the number - unless you have memorised it. In any case you are going to need to show it.
ARRIVING
2 If you have a fast track ticket because you are a frequent flyer, get your ticket out and know where it is. For example, in top right pocket, in lower left pocket, in front pocket of around my neck bag.
The frequent flyer's fast track ticket should get both of you through in the same queue - no point in having one of you going through fast toad the other delaying them. Have your brief explanation ready and say it confidently.
3 COLLECTING LUGGAGE
While waiting by an empty carousel, one of you can watch and keep a place beside the carousel whilst the other goes to the toilet.
Check with staff where oversize items are delivered. Your large suitcase or box or skis might already be at the other end of the luggage hall waiting for you.
JOING QUEUES
As you approach the lines, don't just join the nearest. Watch all the lines to see which are shortest and which are moving fastest. Whether you are at an airport or supermarket, if your family group has two or more people, you might split between two lines. If possible jump from the slower line to the faster one. (Either both/all of you move to a different line. Usually the line at the far end has fewest people and a member of the airport staff is trying to encourage people to move to the gap. Or one of you joins the spouse in the quicker line.
Lots of people will be half asleep, too tired to move. Others are chatting to family, and / or stuck with heavy carry on bags, coats and small children.
TAXIS
Check where in the airport to find the taxi queue and the desk where you pay in advance (for example, Changi Airport in Singapore.) Have your hotel name address ready for the taxi advance payment desk, including postcode so they can calculate the fare. Note that cities my have several hotels called Marriott or Holiday Inn and variations on local names such as Royal Hotel or Paris something or other.
In Phoenix, Arizona, USA, we went to the Holiday Inn and checked in only to find we were at the wrong one. In Wales we went to the Castle Hotel when we were booked into the Castle View hotel, smaller - that's why it was cheaper.
In Cambodia, staying at a small guesthouse, we asked the guest house to send a driver who knew the hotel.
If your hotel is a small and probably unknown guest house, try to find a nearby landmark, or ask the hotel for directions (in English and written in the local language). When leaving your hotel, ask for it to be marked and named on a map to show the taxi bringing you back.
Also get the hotel address card for the name, which you might not be pronouncing right. If they don't have an address card (it's being reprinted) nor a brochures (you book on line), get the breakfast or dinner bill receipt headed with the hotel or guest house name. Failing all else, if the towel had the hotel name and logo, photograph that; if the sewing kit or matchbook has the hotel or hotel's restaurant name, take or photograph that.
Photograph the front of the hotel as you leave. You can show the taxi the name of the hotel and what the building looks like. Photograph from the front and also approaching from both directions with the traffic flow so the driver can see if he pulls in alongside or has to cross to the other side of the road.
TAXIS
Check other hotels with similar names to be sure your driver is racing to the right one. Check the route. If he's driving towards the West and your hotel is in the East, be sure you are being taken to the right hotel.
Check the distance and the route. If he expects to take half an hour on the motorway to a hotel which is just around the corner, near enough to walk if you weren't carrying heavy luggage, either he is cheating you or he has misunderstood where you are going.
TAXI NAME AND NUMBER
Keep the taxi receipt so you can phone your favourite driver, call if you have left your luggage or umbrella or passport in the front or back seat or the boot (Americans call it the trunk). Identify the driver if he overcharges or drives dangerously.
Photograph the number of the taxi and the name and phone number of the driver (even if its hand written. If you put it in your pocket it might be quicker to find the photo than the lost scrap of paper. When you come out of the building or temple by another exit you can phone to ask where he is or say where you are.
(Cambodian temples have a one way system. You go in at the West and out of the east, occasionally vice versa. I lost everybody - different exit once. We had trouble finding our driver - correct exit but dozens of tuk-tuks in three car parks - twice.)
You might also like to ask for:
1 A driver who speaks good English.
2 A lady driver, if you are a single woman travelling alone. (Singapore has a small number of lady drivers. I had one by chance and she told me that she was the first, but now there are several. Some of her regular customers specifically ask for a lady driver.)
Author
Angela Lansbury, frequent flyer, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Please share links to posts.
