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In many ways one can say that airports are reflections (phản chiếu) of the countries in which they are located. Airports tell stories of economic, social and cultural development (phát triển văn hóa).

Today I got a very pleasant surprise when I arrived at the airport. A surprise that fundamentally makes me quite a bit more optimistic about Poland's long-run growth (tăng trưởng dài hạn) perspectives (quan điểm).

So what have changed at Chopin airport? Well, it is simple, but in my view quite important – airport security has been changed. Until recently and as long back I can remember (more than a decade) the staff taking care of the security check at Chopin airport has been uniformed militia style (phong cách dân quân) people in combat style outfits (trang phục) armed with guns (được trang bị với súng).

These people have never seemed especially concerned about seeing their jobs as a service to clients at the airport. Rather they generally never smiled (không bao giờ mỉm cười) and in general were quite inefficient  (không hiệu quả) in getting people through the airport security check.

Today, however, I was not meet by armed military style people, but instead by polite (lịch sự) and a lot more efficient staff dressed in normal cloth (trang phục bình thường) – and nice orange ties. They looked like the personal in Scandinavian airports. I guess they are personel of a private company rather than government employees (remember they actually smiled…).

Friendly, well-dressed and efficient. Gone were the scary looking, but lazy militia type people. That indeed was a nice surprise.

Over the years have given a lot of thought to exactly what we can learn about airport security and I for many years have had a theory that countries that have military style airport security and where the security staff generally see passages as 'animals' which potentially are a threat to security rather than clients that should be served also are countries where government regulation is excessive in other areas of economic life.

Hence, my theory is that if you meet an unfriendly bureaucrat (quan chức không thân thiện) at the security check (kiểm tra an ninh) in the airport then it is also very likely it will be hard to start a business (bắt đầu kinh doanh) in that country. Therefore, I tend to think of airport security as an indicator (người chỉ thị) of the level of government regulation (quy định) of the country's economy (nền kinh tế). This is something that makes me terribly (khủng khiếp) bearish on the US' long-term growth perspectives every time I encounter a TSA official in an US airport – and makes me terribly depressed about the prospects for Ukraine and it gives me an understanding of why the Scandinavian countries 'works' well despite excessively large public sectors.

It was therefore a pleasure today to meet friendly and efficient people at the security check in Chopin airport. And if my theory has any value this is an indication that Poland has "matured" and the level of regulation is luckily getting lighter. That is good news. So now I am thinking of raising my long-run growth forecasts for Poland…

I would love to hear my readers' experience with airport security around the world and whether you see the same correlation between the "friendliness" of airport security and the ease of doing business.