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Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport
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Total Views: 158 - Total Replies: 0
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I'd like to talk about one of the mostfrightening things in travel today--a tight connection at Paris'Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG).
I know better than to try, but on my recent trip home from Venice to Sacramento (SMF), I tried anyway.
Theonly other connection would have required my family to wake up at3:30am, leave our cruise ship for the airport at 4:30am and lay overfor five hours at CDG. I decided to live on the edge.
I took theconnection offered by the airlines when I booked my tickets--one hourand 10 minutes. By the time my flight from Venice arrived in Paris, myflight to Sacramento had already departed.
All travelers know thatsooner or later your number comes up and something goes awry, butattempting a short connection at CDG, Europe's most-delayed airport, islike playing Russian roulette with no empty chambers in the gun.
CDGis France's own Bermuda Triangle, where people and their luggage goquietly missing in huge quantities on a daily basis, only to emergelater, unable to explain what happened or where they have been.
Atany given time, there are enough people lost or stranded in CDG to linethe entire course of the Tour de France, elbow to elbow. In fact, ifyou took all these travelers and stacked them on top of eachother...well, that's probably not a good idea.
We queued up atAir France's service desk, and when I reached the front of the line,the agent confirmed what I already knew, that there was no other flightthat could get us to Sacramento that day and we'd be spending the night.
I asked about our luggage, and she seemed surprised to hear that people traveling from Venice to Sacramento might check bags.
"Ohhh,"she winced, shaking her head as if a grave mistake had been made. "Youwill need to go to baggage services to retrieve your bags."
Where is that?
"Take a left and walk 10 minutes."
Ilearned long ago that most people who work at CDG have given up onproviding complete directions to anything that is not already withinsight. They seek merely to move you along. I had been given thestandard directions to anything and everything at CDG.
Eventually, in baggage services, it was explained that bags "in transit" cannot be retrieved. Why? It's simple:
"Ifthese bags could be retrieved, they would no longer be in transit, andthese bags are in transit, making retrieval impossible."
Sorather than disturb our bags, presumably still enjoying some forwardmomentum, we were each given a small box with one white T-shirt, atoothbrush, a razor, an impenetrable pouch of shaving cream and laundrydetergent--in case we decided to wash the clothes we were wearing inthe sink in our hotel room.
We stepped outside and joined allthe other misconnected people waiting for hotel shuttles. As vehiclesof all sizes pulled up, we heard the song of the frustrated over andover again.
"Is this the bus...?"
"No."
"Is this the place...?"
"No."
"Do you know where...?"
"No."
Tobe clear, I don't blame the people who work on the airplanes or thepeople who work in the airport for the way the airport operates. Theseare problems that cannot be solved at the individual level, andpossibly not at the country or planet level. This is inefficiency ofgalactic proportions, and a galactic solution may be required.
Andplease don't get me wrong--I like France and the country's new,no-nonsense, pro-American president, Nicolas Sarkozy. He has pledged toclean up the inefficiencies and out-of-control bureaucracies thatstifle the French economy.
I even like Air France, mostly. Ihave enjoyed good crews and clean, modern planes with this airline. Ibelieve they are hampered by the sad reality that most of their flightsbegin or end at CDG, Europe's most illogical airport.
Forexample, what are the airlines at CDG hiding from? There seems to be nosignage outside or inside the terminals that lists airlineticketing/check-in locations.
Security checkpoints could alsouse some attention. Earlier in our vacation, standing in a very longsecurity line for a flight to Barcelona, I couldn't help noticing thateach conveyor belt was allocated TWO trays, which meant thatonly one person at a time could go through the laborious process ofemptying their pockets and removing their metallic objects.
Maybeit's a job creation project since it results in lines that move atabout 1/5 the theoretical rate and thus requires 5x as many conveyorbelts--and operators.
Then there's Terminal 2, a series ofloosely connected buildings identified as 2A to 2F. They all sound soclose, but that's just one of the inside jokes CDG plays on travelers.
Terminal2 covers an area roughly the size of Belgium. Strike out walking from2A to 2F and your passport will likely expire en route.
Myadvice: Always allow extra time for connections at CDG if you can.Never take the last flight of the day to connect to a cruise or tourdeparture--where the penalty for a missed connection or cancelledflight is so steep. If you want to live dangerously, do it on the wayhome.
So, President Sarkozy--and I really am pulling foryou--where should you begin such a massive undertaking as making CDGconsumer-friendly?
I'd go straight to the airport and askdisoriented travelers what they're looking for and how long they'vebeen at it. I'd try to find out why so many jetways sit vacant while somany planes park in the hinterlands and bus their passengers to theterminal.
I'd watch what's happening at Air France'sself-check-in kiosks, which time out after two seconds of inactivityand force everyone into an "exceptions" line manned by a single agent.
I'dtalk to the shuttle drivers and service managers that aid the helplessand hopeless and finally, to that guy that works in the informationbooth--as soon as his break is over.
"How can we improve this system," I would ask, and I can almost hear his suggestion:
"Take a left and walk 10 minutes."
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