I love queues. Not that I love queueing — I may be English but I’m not that English. But from a safe distance, queues are fascinating. They’re less fun if they cause you to miss your flight. In mid-May, two-hour queues for security at Chicago’s Midway airport had just that effect. Jeh Johnson, the US Secretary for Homeland Security, offered travellers some meditative advice: “Contemplate increased wait times as you travel.” I’d hope we can do a little better than mindful meditation.
我喜歡排隊的隊伍。不是說我喜歡排隊——我可能很「英國」,但我還沒那麼「英國」。但離開一個安全距離來看,排隊是個有趣的問題。如果排隊讓你錯過了自己的航班,它就沒那麼有趣了。5月中旬,在芝加哥中途機場(Midway Airport)排隊兩小時等著過安檢就導致了這種結果。美國國土安全部部長傑•強森(Jeh Johnson)建議旅行者考慮周到一些:「旅客們請考慮到,等待時間延長了。」我希望我們能拿出比建議旅客考慮周全更好一點的解決辦法。