Traumatic, but should we be really surprised at the travel problems?

The current situation – 1000s of people trapped at Heathrow and Gatwick airports due to snow and ice – is no doubt highly traumatic. For people stuck in the older terminals at Heathrow (1, 2 and 3), the circumstances are particularly dire. I was unable to fly to Uganda (with BA) at the weekend from terminal 5 – which thankfully, being bigger was not as congested as other terminals.

However, I am certain BA and the BAA are doing their best to sort out what has to be acknowledged as exceptional  circumstances. Travellers in the 21st century easily forget the complexities of flying by air - especially from an airport like Heathrow, running constantly at 98% capacity. Our demand for a quick international trip beguiles us into thinking that the ease of booking is mirrored by a simple set of logistics to move 400 people in a tube of metal from London to (say) Hong Kong in a few hours.

It is not. All travellers should have at the back of their minds the possibility – rare, but possible – of the problems we face this week. That’s why we take out travel insurance

Airlines do sometimes fail with their communication – but how DOES a company get information to 1000s of people, many in transit? How DOES an airline rebook passengers onto later flights, many of which are already full, in a way that is fair and effective in clearing a backlog? WHEN does an airline decide that it is safe to throw 400 people into the air?

Stressful times. I’m glad I’m not working for an airline. And while my heart goes out to the many people stuck at Heathrow and Gatwick, I do wonder if they forget how our current expectations of an ‘easy’ journey (and I include myself in this) are a little naive, given that highly sophisticated systems underpinning air travel are, like all other such structures, open to (rare) chaos.

This is no-one’s fault. Apart from nature’s I suppose. It is a wake up call that our thirst for travel is in part responsible for the current calamity facing everyone jammed into Heathrow’s awful terminal 3 today. And as we enter an age when we need to reassess ALL our traveling (as oil runs out; as climate change beds in), perhaps the current crisis will force us to think differently.