Airport Inefficiency as a Microcosm, or When Tech Can't Fix Everything 

Imagine the following. Children yelling. Mothers shouting instructions across the gender lines. A lone woman in her business suit with AirPods in her ears completely unperturbed by the cacophony while the group in front of her enquires what needs to be pulled out. Three men with their hair slicked back edge towards the crowd then look surprised when informed that there is in fact a line. Apparently they have a condition where they can’t see anyone else...

Where does this systematic chaos play out every day? It’s in the airport final security check across multiple metropolitan cities in India – a cartoon strip waiting to be drawn up.

You could try and appeal to security for order but you will be severely disappointed. They are only interested in the nail cutter you accidentally packed in the deepest crevice of your baggage. You’re obviously going to retrieve it to kill someone on the plane. Meanwhile, passengers scramble for trays from underneath the new x-ray machines with automatic tray return as if it’s a pile of gold left unattended. They then rush with the trays to an artificially formed “line” that has little connection to how the new machines are designed. Passengers then argue about who actually came first and battle over the order of dumping loaded trays on the conveyor belt. The purpose with which this new technology was set up stands little chance against human ingenuity.

Good luck trying to get security’s attention; for the most part, they are in a stupor that only their next chai break can shake them out of.  They would rather not deal with all the Indians who they often blame for the loss of civilisation and general havoc at airports. “It happens like this because it’s India,” we’ve been informed by security on more than one occasion. “No one listens.”

And that’s why we just shut down cities in preparation for G20. The number of flights will be lower and thus the underlying problem can just be swept under the rug – along with the homeless and the strays – while the G20 delegates enter and marvel at the magnificent infrastructure the capital of the largest democracy in the world has to offer.

The inefficiency in airport queues is but one example of a systemic problem. Having the right infrastructure and the latest technology is a necessary condition for development but by no means a sufficient one. The bar for most operations – even those logistical in nature – is significantly higher than this, yet our vision and efforts struggle to face up to this reality.

We hand out tablets and hope that the tech itself will solve the education crisis despite years of evidence that it does not. We create apps for public health purposes, like contact tracing during the pandemic, without ensuring that they’re being used widely and regularly enough to provide accurate information. We develop dashboards for government programmes, expecting nice-looking charts and colour coding to change the behaviour of those at the frontlines delivering services to citizens. At the heart of these challenges is the constant interaction of people, who may or may not have the same perceptions, goals, incentives and temperaments. Hard infrastructure and technology are only two among many other “human” factors that determine whether these interactions produce outcomes beneficial for individuals and for society writ large.

In the case of airports, there are some straightforward fixes, ever present in other airports around the world, that could make the process more pleasant for passengers. Training staff, for example, on how to use the x-ray machines the way they are designed in order to minimise chaos. Providing better guidance to travellers about how to navigate the process is another easy win. In fact, the authors are happy to offer a bit of encouraging but firm oversight as these solutions are trialled, for a mere 5% cut of the cost savings.

Kartik Akileswaran and Smriti Iyer are both development economists who may be willing to switch careers to the logistics field in order to improve efficiency at airports and the like. You can write to them for more economic development/logistical problems at kartik328@gmail.com & smriti89@gmail.com.

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