Rome's Airport - Still Dead on Arrivals

I was pleased to hear that London's dreaded Terminal 5 received the world's accolades for being 'The Best Airport on Earth', especially after its missteps on opening (and even more unthinkable closings due to a few inches of snow this winter). ?Nonetheless, people love it.
I was tickled pink when just a few days after that disastrous opening, Rome's airport crowned their own international terminal, Terminal 5.? Simply put, it's a holding pen for people going to the USA where they can go thru U.S. "security", one of the biggest jokes in the age of aviation. [But that's another story - although as a serious frequent flyer who works for our govt put it to me on the plane over to the USA, 'the TSA is terrific about going after yesterday's perpetrators...']
Anyway, my Rome airport experience last week reminded me just how unfathomable it is to witness how we can shuttle people in a tube through the air, but can't get them in and around airports.
It started with the (much lauded, by yours truly) new signage over at Rome's airport. The ADR (Rome Airport Authority) has really made progress in devising ways to streamline traffic so you don't feel so much like a rat in a maze by the time you get to security. ?Upon our approach, we were thrilled to find a sort of 'short cut' posted to Terminal 5. ?Naturally, the TERMINAL 5:?NEXT RIGHT arrow led over to the Cargo Terminal; the correct language being, SECOND RIGHT: but hey, who's counting?!
Rejoicing in our agility in averting the cement outpost while rounding that first roundabout, I started to think better of it. ?I suspected there'd be another 8-way roundabout and we'd probably be left hanging as to which way to go. ?But before I could finish my "Rome Auditorium theory of sign-posting"?, there we were. ?We went round and round the roundabout a few times, before determining that the Terminal would not be where one might think it should be. ?And eureka!?we followed that hunch right up to the front door.

I made my way to the third line: x-ray screening. It was my lucky day, because just as I passed through those pearly gates; barefoot and my tablet carefully held against my torso?(and feeling a bit like Moses), the power went out in the entire terminal. ?I looked back to find in my wake ever-growing lines, elevators and escalators ground to a halt. ?People in wheelchairs sat gathering like ducks in a pond, wondering just how they would make it up to the shuttle. ?I gave a little skip of delight at my good fortune and went headed for the terminal.

Incredibly, there was no back-up generator to allow the airport to carry on with their business. ?That is, the business of pushing people through to their destinations. ?But once inside the terminal, I found that business was brisk: it just had nothing to do with the travel industry. ?All of the shops, despite the black-out, were lit up, cash registers ringing like Las Vegas slot machines. ?Travelers may be stuck down in security, but up here, the cash was flowing freely.?
Little by little, hundreds of flyers made their way in, to now wait out the delays due to the black-out. ?In waiting rooms that seated 24 people per gate. ?The immense transfer desk takes up enough room for 200, and I've only ever seen it staffed by two. ?The crowding just to get down your gangway was nothing short of a run on banks in modern Greece. ?
Finally elbowing my way onto the plane, people joked how boarding in Rome was not unlike driving through Italy. Perhaps when it comes to transportation, it's the only way we've been accustomed to doing things.




My next post: ?coming to America and the terminal (illness) of food culture USA.

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