Travel’s Advent calendar: what would you wish for?

December means doors opening daily on Advent calendars. Behind each, a tiny vision of festive joy (or, more likely these days, a chocolate). A good moment to speculate on how the concept could extended to travel – and how the mechanics of moving around could be improved, especially for the benefit of those travelling at Christmas.

Let’s start with aviation security. I have written about how Yuletide passengers should prepare for the airport. Start by allowing bags of time for the security checks; loads of us are travelling, and wearing coats, hats and scarves because it’s midwinter. Regarding those bags filled with fragile gifts: don’t wrap presents before airport security; leave those Christmas crackers out; and make it a snowdome-free journey, as flaky festive stocking-fillers are full of liquid.

My first wish for December is that the airport security experience could be gentler in America. As one of the 2,377,887 passengers screened by the US Transportation Security Administration on the day after Thanksgiving, I can talk from my very recent experience at New York’s JFK airport.

Every time I use the airport, the passenger journey seems even worse. On Friday morning I was waiting to be processed at the main security checkpoint in Terminal 4, the main domain for Delta and Virgin Atlantic. The screens warned it would take 20-25 minutes for processing. But then something weird happened. About 50 of us were told to follow an airline employee holding a sign reading “Follow Me”.

“It will be faster,” I was promised. In fact, anything slower is difficult to imagine. The gentleman proceeded at the pace of a lethargic snail across the departures concourse, away from where the actual planes were located. Then we were led down two escalators to ground level.

Finally, after about 10 minutes of this 21st-century take on the Pied Piper, we ended up in a corner of the terminal where an enormous security queue had built up. The dozens of us, increasingly bewildered. were duly added to the end of the line.

The queue supremo was one of those officials who occasionally pop up in transport roles, barking monosyllabic commands that are particularly unhelpful when directed at passengers for whom English is not a mother tongue. She would occasionally allow a procession of passengers pleading imminent flights…