Why Don’t People Test Software Properly? A Tale of Hand Baggage Fares, Software Problems, and Other Air Travel Woes

Most people don’t know that my first career (and education) was as an Aeronautical Engineer. Yet, I still wonder at the modern marvel that allows us to glide through the skies in a metal tube, while wondering if anyone on board is actually having a good time. Lately, I’ve been doing quite a bit of it, courtesy of my recent, and frankly astonishing, ascent up the ranks of our Great British Flag Carrier’s tier?status system. For the first time since before Covid (remember that?), I’ve found myself entitled to the hallowed privileges of complimentary lounge access, the ability to choose my seat at any time, and?priority boarding.

Yes, priority boarding. The phrase itself evokes images of privileged air travellers who, after paying a bit more for their tickets (or having the aforementioned status), are granted the ability to board the aircraft with all the grace and dignity of a monarch stepping onto their gilded throne. Or, at least, that's what I imagined. What actually happens, however, is something more akin to a stampede of confused cattle trying to wedge themselves into an overhead bin.

Let me explain.

The Mystery of 'Hand Baggage Only' Fares

You see, the airline in question has cleverly introduced the ‘hand baggage only’ fare. A lovely little trick for saving money: passengers don’t check in bags, and in theory, the airline saves on fuel and handling, and passes some of this saving down to customers. Everyone wins, right? Wrong. Because when passengers bring aboard everything they’re?allowed?to carry (and in some cases, the kitchen sink), it leads to utter chaos.

The chaos of crowded overhead bins. The chaos of people wrestling with their suitcases like gladiators, trying to jam them into spaces the size of a cereal box. And the ultimate chaos of the gate agent, with a maniacal gleam in their eye, gleefully telling non-status or economy passengers to check in their hand baggage,?at the gate,?to make room for all the carry-ons.

So, here I am, as a proud business class passenger, with?superior?status and all the perks that come with it, only to be told that my ‘priority boarding’ counts for exactly nothing. The economy passengers, who are holding tickets that cost less than a train ride to Blackpool, are ushered through the gate first. I stand there, baffled, clutching my gilded boarding pass, as I watch the entire cabin get filled up by passengers who have been in Wetherspoons since 6am.

The plot thickens.

The 23kg Baggage Limit: A Orwellian Odyssey

And there’s more: ?Let’s talk about the baggage rules, which have recently started to feel like a surrealist dream. I’m attempting to check in a piece of luggage that’s ever so slightly over the 23kg limit. The airline representative, with the subtle smile of someone who’s dealt with this hundreds of times, informs me:

“Sorry, Sir, you’ll have to remove some items from your check-in baggage.”

“Ah, yes,” I reply, “and where exactly would you like me to put them? In my?hand luggage? Which is also going on the same plane?”

“Yes, Sir.”

At this point, I start wondering if I’ve accidentally stumbled into some kind of avant-garde theatre performance. Is this a commentary on the absurdity of modern bureaucracy? Am I living inside 1984?

But, of course, I comply. Because what else can you do when confronted with a situation so bizarre it makes you question the very fabric of reality?

A Glitch in the Matrix at Heathrow

Now, stepping away from the flag carrier for a moment, let’s turn our attention to a slightly more sinister issue at?London Heathrow, Terminal 5. As a seasoned traveller (and yes, a person of no small amount of?opinion), I had always trusted in the smooth efficiency of the airport's biometric security system. The system works like this: you scan your boarding pass at the security entrance, and a camera takes your photo. You then arrive at the gate, scan your boarding pass again, and voilà! the system matches your face to your boarding pass and lets you through.

Except when it doesn’t.

This was what happened to me recently: ?I arrive at the gate, scan my boarding pass with the kind of self-assurance usually reserved for superheroes, and…..?nothing. It turns out that some other dude's?face was recorded at security instead of mine. The biometrics didn’t match. Because of this technological hiccup, I was suddenly deemed a non-passenger, unable to prove that I had actually gone through security.

Now, let me get this straight. I am?airside, people! There’s no possible way to be airside without passing through security. Do they think I opened a wormhole and teleported here? The whole thing smacks of a software system that was hastily shoved into production without sufficient testing. Because let’s be real here: I’m not the first person to experience this?IT glitch. In fact, after some casual sleuthing (which involved me reading angry forum posts), I discovered that this happens quite frequently at T5 - especially for domestic flights.

As someone who delivers software projects for a living, this makes my teeth itch. Not only did no one properly test the system, but apparently?no one?thought of a manual workaround. You know, like a human being doing a job that, in an ideal world, the software would do for them?

A Final Word on Software and Airline Shenanigans

Look, I get it. Software is hard. Technology is finicky. But if you’re going to design a system that governs who gets on a plane and who doesn’t, maybe test it?just a little bit harder?before launching it into the real world? It’s not exactly rocket science. And when the software fails, as it inevitably does, don’t leave your poor, overworked staff to try to figure it out on the fly.

So, to all the software folks out there who think “testing” is something they’ll get to “later”, don’t. Just don’t. There’s nothing more irritating than encountering an IT glitch when you’re already 30,000 feet in the air, clinging to your hand baggage, and wondering if anyone at the airport has ever heard of?quality assurance.

But hey, at least I have priority boarding, right? Oh wait…

This article is brought to you by the barely-contained frustration of an air traveller who just wanted to get to Glasgow without losing his mind.