Aap qatar mein hai

Back after about 6 months, with something I just observed a few days back. In fact it may be something that most of us would have noticed but not really paid attention to.

Late last month, I was in Qatar (the country), on my way home for a short vacation. I had a stopover of about 4 hours, and decided to spend the time at the gate, my Nano plugged in, reading Frederick Forsyth. I finished the book in quick time, and then was just looking around, observing people.

There were about 6-7 flights that were scheduled at that particular gate in those 4 hours. Varying destinations, including Beirut, Jakarta and Damascus. As the time between the flights wasn't too much, there was quite a number of people around, and the seats were pretty full up. However, for all flights, the gate was functioning efficiently, with hardly any stoppages.

Then my flight (to Mumbai) was announced. As soon as Mumbai was heard, the passengers shot out of their seats like Olympic sprinters and in the mater of 5 (or maybe 10) seconds, there was a huge line in front of the gate. And I mean HUGE! It was really funny. Seats empty, and about 100 odd people standing in line at the gate to get in.

Out of curiosity, I just looked around, and at NO other gate, was there such a line. At all other visible gates, it was a maximum of 5-10 standing in queue for boarding. I just timed the process. There were 2 people checking the boarding passes. And each was taking about 20-25 seconds per passenger. So on an average, every minute approx 4 passengers were passing through the gate. And the line was there for 25 odd minutes (which was how I estimated it was around 100 odd people). So basically, the slowest guy out of the blocks, was standing in the queue for 25 minutes before he got in. Instead he could have easily kept sitting in his seat for the 25 minutes, and just walked through the gate once the line is done. Which is what I did, along with a couple other guys.

Strange thing is, I noticed the exact same thing on my way back, at the Delhi international airport. In fact this time it was worse. This time the line was there at the gate BEFORE the flight was even announced!!! And to add to that, I noticed that most of the gates had a line snaking through the aisles. Ditto when I took a flight from Pune to Delhi. Then when I thought back to my previous flights, I realised that this was a common factor in all of them. It was as if Indians had an affinity to forming lines.

In other places, it may be justified, coz the quicker you get to the counter, the quicker you are serviced and get out of there. Or it may be that you get better tickets (as in a movie hall). But here, you already have the boarding pass in your hand, your seat is fixed, and the flight is still a good hour away from take off. So no chance of anything changing if you are the first or last to the gate. And even if one is the first to go through the gate, you anyways have to wait in the plane or the coach for the same amount of time you would wait at the gate! Yet people are ready to stand uncomfortably in the queue for 25 minutes. Why??

A few years back, when Air Deccan and other low cost airlines had launched their service, the phenomenon may well be justified. In those days the seat numbers were not allotted. So the seats were purely on first-come-first-serve basis. But why so when the seats are already allotted? And also, why is this thing seen only amongst Indians? And then they say Indians are not disciplined! :P

Just something that has me stumped! Do observe this the next time you are taking a flight, and let me know if there is any plausible explanation. And also if there is any other race or nationality that does the same thing.