End of the line: it’s time to rethink the queue

Flying to Kalamata this week, I did my own little bit to reduce the terrible queues at Heathrow Terminal 5. Heroically, I stacked up the grey luggage trays once they’d been emptied by passengers coming through security.

As a result, there were more loaded trays for people to pick up, and a smaller tailback of passengers — including me — waiting to pick up their unloaded trays. It was just a tiny example of the hundreds of things that could be done to reduce queues in airports, hospitals, train stations, supermarkets…

The British may be famous for their patient queueing but it doesn’t mean we actually like doing it. So why hasn’t more been done to eradicate queues?

We can travel around the world faster than ever. Medicine makes even more miraculous advances. One of the joyful aspects of Amazon is that it removes the need to queue in shops.