What Does it Really Take?

While boarding Air India flight from Delhi to LA there was the usual confusion and commotion that is almost always seen on a typical Indian airport. However, what was striking was that there were a large number of Airport Authority, CISF and Air India people loitering around, overseeing that commotion, each brandishing their flashy badges but completely oblivious to the fact that prior to boarding people had made 3-4 informal lines, without any seat number or seating order.
Someone from Air India announced that they would now start boarding and everyone just flowed towards the gate, flocking the single gate in utter disorder.
No attempt was made to ask for any seating area ordering or seat number. Imagine about four hundred confused people clamoring in a small area, peeping over each others shoulders and tripping over hand baggage.
What was even more confounding was they were checking the boarding passes and passports just before boarding no less than three times! And this after you had already cleared the security.
Perhaps the densest part was that there was one person checking the boarding pass at the entrance of the tunnel leading up to aircraft and then there was another person at the aircraft gate!
After having waded through a staff of at least twenty people, it took a lot of time for passengers to settle in the aircraft as there were people shoving their luggage while a whole file waited anxiously behind them.
Anyway, after a delay of almost an hour the plane reached Frankfurt for a brief stopover and refueling. There the waiting area was "manned" by just one woman!
When we began to re-board the plane she authoritatively asked everyone to come by seat numbers and announced seat numbers in order. Neat lines were formed and everyone got in a fourth of a time. Suddenly it appeared that the plane had so much fewer passengers!