The Airport Index

Everyone has heard of the Big Mac Index, published by the Economist as a way of measuring purchasing power parity (PPP) across countries. There's now also a school of thought that uses the average length of women's skirts as a leading indicator of economic growth, and another school using men's receding hair lines as a lagging indicator.

Sitting here in Kuala Lumpur en route back to India, I now have my own: the airport index, as a relative indicator of GDP per capita for a given country. The way this index works is this: the greater the number of markings/stickers/tags/highlights on your airline ticket by the time you actually board your flight, the lower the GDP per capita of the country you're in.

For instance, in leaving Manila this morning, I had to pass through five separate gateways, where my ticket was inspected, something or other circled and signed, and sticker stuck. There was the initial security check, with the line extending 50 passengers outside the actual airport (which could be avoided by bribing the Philippine security guards, which I saw happen three times during a 20 minute wait -- twice by western businessmen, and once by a Filipino family).

Then of course check in, where you get your luggage tag. Yet another security check where your actual gate is circled by the guard who also checks that your name matches your passport. I see immigration and I think I'm all cleared... except for the terminal fee of 750 pesos before I can even line up for immigration. Here, I get both a sticker on my ticket, as well as a receipt.

Finally, passing immigration, I get another signature on my ticket. Oh and that's right, one last security check right at the gate, involving the guard highlighting my terminal fee sticker.

This actually isn't that far off from India, although to be fair, it depends which airport you're in. In a place like Jharkhand, tickets are not even printed by machine. Therefore, the ticketing agent has a whole stack of blank tickets, which at some point before checking in, they fill in your name with magic marker.

It doesn't appear that this stack is then alphabetized in any order, for it takes at least fifteen minutes to find one's ticket once check in actually happens -- during which point the passenger is repeatedly asked whether they do indeed have a ticket on this flight. Then come the numerous security checks (even for a domestic flight), that by the time you board, your ticket looks like a pre-school project!! There's red and blue circles and signatures, as well as highlights.

In India, the process is actually worse, as each piece of carry-on requires a tag, which you must get stamped at security. Nevermind that logically speaking, a piece of carry-on can't be brought on board if it doesn't pass security -- India requires the additional guarantee of a stamped tag.

The problem here is that the tags are so cheap and flimsy, that they easily fall off, and then you are in huge trouble trying to board (this happened to me once flying from Delhi to Hyderabad, and I almost missed my flight because I had to go back to security from all the way from the gate!)

Contrast this to a country like the US. I was shocked when I came home a few years ago and saw passengers not even printing a ticket from their e-ticket. Rather, the scanners at the gate could just scan one's Blackberry or smart phone directly!!

I can only imagine what travel must be like in Qatar or Luxembourg! -- the two richest countries by GDP per capita!