journalism

While Britain is moving air travel in to the 21st century, across the Atlantic they seem to be challenging us not to come, says Anthony Horowitz.

Having recently returned from the US, I feel obliged to offer a few thoughts about American transport. Because – certainly at Los Angeles and New York – something has gone very badly wrong. A lot of people complain about Heathrow and Gatwick but the truth is that we British have quietly set about moving air travel into the twenty-first century while across the Atlantic they almost seem to be challenging us not to come.

I’m not the only one complaining. At the last election, Senator Joe Biden compared American airports, unfavourably, with Chinese ones, saying (of LaGuardia in New York): “It feels like it’s in some third world country.” This year, The Economist magazine examined one million flights and concluded that US airports can be summed up as: “soggy pizzas, surly security staff and endless queues.” And last week Barack Obama ordered members of his cabinet to deliver a comprehensive plan to help create a "postive first impression" for international visitors.

Speaking from my own recent experiences, I can only agree. It can now take an hour, sometimes two, to move through the passport control at JFK. A Disney-style queue (or should I say “line”) snakes back and forth to a row of cubicles, half of which are normally empty, and the border guards don’t seem to be in any particular hurry. On bad days, I’ve waited another hour to get through customs. And don’t believe that’s the end of it. The taxi system at JFK is unbelievably poor. The last time I was there, I was told it would be a 50-minute wait in yet another Disney line so took the airbus to Jamaica Station and travelled in on the E line…fine unless you have heavy luggage as most stations have no escalators or lifts back up to the street.

The arrivals hall itself is drab, devoid of humanity, and your six hours in the air, with jet-lag already fogging your mind, only makes it worse. And what exactly is it with all this security? I can’t think of another country in the world that demands so much of its visitors. You start with the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation or ESTA (cost $14) which as its name suggests, gives you the right to travel to America but not necessarily to enter it. At the border, you will may well be interrogated before you are photographed and finger-printed, pressing your hand onto a screen that serves as a modern-day bible, swearing you are not a terrorist.

It strikes me that a timorous quality has entered the American psyche since 9/11. Of course, the horror of that day still resonates and it must never happen again. But we had 7/7. Spain had the Madrid train bombings. Russia was repeatedly attacked before the Sochi Olympics. None of these countries demand anything like the same assurances as the USA immigration authorities.

And this is what I don’t understand. It is impossible to board a plane in the UK without providing ID. There are then at least six hours during which you are trapped. Why is it not possible, using modern technology, to check the identity and integrity of every passenger while they are in the air? And when you think about it, what use are all these fingerprints anyway? If you have no criminal record your fingerprints will tell the authorities precisely nothing. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t intend to commit a crime.

^{'It can now take an hour, sometimes two, to move through the passport control at JFK' (Photo: Getty)}

Leaving America is almost as bad as arriving. Unlike, for example, Gatwick, which now has a state-of-the-art security system with pleasant, helpful staff who make the whole process of searching you and your luggage as fast and as pain-free as possible, LA and New York security is slow, cramped and ever so slightly menacing. The Americans do not seem to go for duty-free shopping, certainly not on the scale of we Brits. Hudson News, with its feeble selection of books, tacky gifts and T-shirts, must be one of the most dispiriting chains in the world. And food? UK airports now offer Pret, Carluccio, Gordon Ramsay, Costa and even the Caviar House. At LA’s domestic terminal we joined a forty-minute line to get into the one, tired Starbucks and the international terminal is not a lot better.

Returning to Heathrow, I made it from the air tunnel to the train in just nine minutes, passing through the electronic passport control and snatching my cases off the carousel with barely any wait at all. The Heathrow Express may not be cheap but it’s fast and efficient and even Paddington Station has been given a facelift. It strikes me that airports say a lot about a country’s attitude and the way it presents itself to the rest of the world and the Americans really need to think again.