'AIR TRAVEL—US STYLE
SIR,—Leslie Adrian is fortunate in his experiences Of American airlines. i. have never actually flown BOAC, but frequently with its associated companies, Quantas, Teal, East African Airways and so forth. My only criticism of those services as a tourist pas' senger is that you are too spoon-fed and thus ill' prepared for travel on American airlines. Like Leslie Adrian I have just been, for about eight weeks, travelling to and through America, partly by air, and 1 sincerely say that, for the tourist' class passenger anyway. BOAC seems to be far more efficient. To begin with, on none of the American airlines 1 travelled was it possible to engage seats before starting. The procedure is simple. AnythinE up to an hour before scheduled departure time, what passes in America for a queue begins to form at the barrier opposite the loading bay for the service needed. Eventually an official opens the gate, glances at the first few tickets, and then the mob of intendin0 passengers race across the tarmac, struggle violentlY up the loading ladder and throw themselves into the best available seats. Having been a rugby player in my youth I soon learned the technique and found that Americans in plane rushes are very fearful of heels and elbows.
Airports, I grant, are modern and efficient places as far as planes landing and taking off are concerned' But those long, covered passenger-ways entail an enormous amount of walking on hard concrete. and how a car-loving 'people like the Americans put LIP with these endless miles of walking I can't conceive. Owing to a dis'ruption of services caused by, of all things, a change to summer time, I spent four hours in Los Angeles Airport tramping these gloomY corridors in search of- seats on overfull planes. and on a Friday afternoon in Chicago I had just such [soother experience, the fault this time being mine, so the official at the desK told me, because the pilot instead of going to Midway, as the ticket said, had landed at O'Hare.
No, sir, American air transport is first-class techni- cally but for real comfort passengers should be anzesthetised before departure and carried as freight.
Yours faithfully, J. 0. CHERRINGTON Tangley Farm, Tangley, Near Andover, Hams
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