Power Landing

Mythili Bhusnurmath recently wrote a piece on our inability to wait until the plane comes to a complete halt before turning on our mobiles. But its not just the mobile phones we are after. Barely a second after the plane touches down, and before it has even started to taxi, seat belts are popped open, mobile phones turned on, overhead compartments opened, and a beeline is made for the exit. Were it not for the locked doors, the adventurous might not even wait for the stairs and consider making the 10-foot jump. Such abject disregard for rules and safety is unheard of in any other country and makes one wonder why someone spending a couple of hours twiddling thumbs in the air would suddenly get so excited and active to save a few minutes at most. After all, our flights are usually off by more than a few minutes.

Here's the point: It's not those few minutes that people are after. It is the resultant delay that could be in hours if those few minutes are not well utilized.

Let me explain. We live in India where power laws surface even in the most mundane of instances.“Power laws” is a term used to indicate a non-linear, usually exponential, relationship between two variables. Let’s say it takes you an hour to drive from home to work. If you start at 7, you reach at 8, start at 8, you reach at 9 and so on. If you plot your start time on X axis and arrival time on Y axis, you will see a diagonal straight line that indicates a linear relationship. But let’s say, if you start at 7, it takes you an hour, but if you leave at 8, it takes an hour and 30 minutes. At 9, it takes two hours and so on. Now, if you plot these, you will get an exponential curve. The point being, if you are 5 minutes late in getting off the plane, it might take you an hour longer to reach your home or workplace.

What does a typical domestic traveler do on arrival? Pick up the baggage and head for the exit. Now, in the US and other countries, there is a clearly marked lane with several cabs waiting. One simply gets into a cab and zips off. Here, though, we have the prepaid taxi counter - a monopoly that cares a damn for travelers. They are in no hurry to get people out fast and are often seen engaged in shouting contests with cab drivers. So if you are late by even a minute, you see 10 people ahead of you in the line at the counter. That also means 10 opportunities for things to go wrong. Someone does not know the exact name of the locality so the guy at the counter denies a cab and an argument ensues. Someone isnt carrying change - another argument. The 2 minute delay in getting off the aircraft has already snowballed into a 20 minute delay in getting out of the airport.

There's more. The roads leading out of the airport arent broad enough so the traffic is typically crawling. During peak hours, traffic starts piling up and a smart cabbie tries to save 30 seconds by cutting across a lane and creates a mess that takes 30 minutes to clear. Your misery just keeps compounding...

Am not saying that the precious headstart of a minute or two will ensure you will reach your destination in time. There will be several other traps along the way that are impossible to avoid. Just that getting out of the airport quickly is the only aspect under your control and it would seem foolish not to use it. I am willing to bet that the moment our airport facilities and services ensure that we can get out of the airport without hassles, people will be much more relaxed. In fact, I think we are much more relaxed when arriving at new Blr or Hyd airports that are much less congested.