AS WE’VE NOTED here before, there is a purgatorial or limbo-like quality about airports: occupying as they do an intermediate space between heaven and earth, wherein anxious souls hoping for onward connections while away the time in strange, other-worldly shops containing outsized Toblerone bars and other things you don’t see anywhere else.
But concerned reader John Hamill fears the new boarding gate system at Dublin Airport will only add to the sense of disorientation air travellers experience. The system is described by the airport authority as “a move from an alpha-numerical to a more logical, customer-focused numeric sequence”. Despite which, John predicts it will increase the number of people who have no idea where they’re going.
However logical the changes appear to their designers, he foresees a rise in the number of passengers “wandering around in dazed confusion” because they have failed to recognise the logic whereby the old Pier D gates are now Gates 101 and upwards; the old Pier A gates are 201 and upwards; and so on. (It’s a separate issue that the new system has indeed created a Gate 101 – formerly D60 – thereby giving aerophobes who are also George Orwell fans yet another reason to be nervous.)
CUSTOMER-FOCUSED solutions, logical or otherwise, are of course everywhere you look these days. Consider the CCTV cameras that most shops now have. These are “customer-focused security solutions” in a very real sense (although in fairness, I believe some are staff-focused too).
But I digress. And getting back to the airport, I note that the DAA also insists the new system is “a more intuitive way finding solution”. On which point at least, I can see the rationale.
Intuitive way-finding is something of a national sport in Ireland, thanks to our everyday experience of the road system. Faced with the country's many un-signposted crossroads and T-junctions, we must hone our orienteering skills from an early age, making decisions from such clues as the position of the sun, wind-direction, and the odds that whatever finger-posts areprovided may have been realigned by pranksters.
An incidental benefit of this system is that tourists in Ireland often end up hopelessly lost, forcing them to ask directions: whereupon they become exposed to the famous loquaciousness of the natives, who say things such as: “Well, I can tell you how to get there but, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here.”
The tourists then go home charmed, forgetting about the hotel and food prices. So maybe, for all its talk of logical sequencing, the DAA is just bringing Dublin Airport’s signage system into line with the rest of the country. If so, the standardisation is to be welcomed.
SPEAKING OF numeric sequences, maybe it’s time the international aviation authorities introduced these for airport codes too. At present, the three-letter alphabetical codes, featured on everything from boarding passes to luggage tags, are a mishmash. They range from the obvious (DUB for Dublin), to the less obvious (LGW for London Gatwick), to the downright obscure (ORD for O’Hare, Chicago).
Some are plain unfortunate. For every public relations winner in the code lottery (the small English airport at Farnborough is FAB, for example), there are losers. Spare a thought for Pittsburgh (PIT), Fresno (FAT), the Russian city of Perm (PEE), and Pusan, South Korea (PUS). Or even for Ile Ouen, New Caledonia: imagine having to collect landing fees for an airport code-named IOU.
However obvious, the common practice of using of the first three letters of a city’s name for its airport code can look all wrong when printed large on luggage labels. Japan’s Fukuoka, India’s Cochin, and Cumana in Venezuela could all benefit from numerical substitutes. And so, at least for nervous flyers, could Bodo in Norway (BOO), or Sweden’s Angelhoch/ Helsingborg airport (AGH).
Airport codes can be a genuine source of municipal embarrassment. Witness Sioux City, Iowa, whose airport code is SUX. Locals tried to change it some years ago. But SAX, SIX, SOX, and even SEX (Sembach in Germany) were all taken. So the US Federal Aviation Authority offere several alternatives, including one formed by a contraction of the middle word in the title “Sioux Gateway Airport”.
Inexplicably, the city opted against recoding its airport GAY. It stuck instead with the original, attempting to turn a public relations embarrassment into a triumph by such stunts as the city mayor wearing a T-shirt with the slogan: “Fly SUX”.
But we have an example much nearer to home too. By the normal logic, Cork Airport should be code-named COR. Unfortunately, COR was already taken (by Cordoba). So the airport of Ireland’s “real capital” is ORK, instead. Which is not the worst thing, unless you remember the 1980s sitcom Mork and Mindy, in which Ork was the home planet of an alien played by Robin Williams.
A weirdly amusing species, Orkans were descended from chickens, drank through their fingers, and (if male) laid eggs. They also greeted each other with the catchphrase “Nanoo-nanoo”. And yes, some people might say that Cork’s eccentric airport code is entirely suited to its colourful natives. But in this case, surely a less customer-focused solution would be preferable?
- fmcnally@irishtimes.com