The Anonymous Widower

Queues Are The Nature Of Travel

I went on a cruise a few days ago, which started at Southampton on the 18th of March. As I got to the terminal at the port to pick up my ship, I ended up in the queue for registration and boarding.

It then struck me that it is almost impossible to travel anywhere on anything without some form of queue.

In some ways the most queue-free travel, that I’ve used extensively is a light aircraft, although you often have to queue for taxi, take-off and landing. But I suspect that with this type of flying the proportion of time wasted is one of the lowest, except perhaps for walking.  But even walkers have to queue up to cross the road!

But not all pilots queue!

I remember, waiting to take-off back to the UK, after a day at Deauville races, when a large business jet owned by Allen Paulson; the entrepreneur and racehorse owner, passed the queue and took straight off, despite volumes of Gallic abuse from French Air Traffic Control. C who was sitting next to me at the time, thought the behaviour was very rude and even dangerous.

It certainly was the sort of behaviour that would often have resulted in a reprimand.

To return to my cruise, after the first queue, we then had to queue a second time to get through security to get on the ship.

Note that so all of the cruise posts can be viewed together they have been given a tag of X304.

March 28, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Cruise, Flying, France, Ship, X304