Where America trails Europe (read)

Dateline: 12 September 2007

Your columnist is a frequent traveler to the United States and is writing this column from Washington DC. His wife is a US citizen, though they are both resident in the UK. It is a constantly entertaining game to make lists of things which work better in the UK and things which are better in the US. There may even be a discernable pattern.

The biggest thing which Americans do better than the British (or indeed anyone else) is customer service. Many of the other things are sub-categories of this: for example shoes. British shoes are sold without width fittings, other than for children. As though all adults have feet of the same width! A major exception to the rule of better customer service is airports. Common Sense has commented in detail on this in the past, but recent experience at Dulles has reinforced this. But then, what would we expect? London’s main airports are privately owned. Federal law requires all American airports to be government owned. One function of an airport is as shopping mall with a captive customer base. Would your local shopping mall be better run by the US Post Office?

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