Life in a small town
In the latest TSA news, CNN is reporting that "Family lane program expands to every airport in the country starting Thursday."
Wonder how that's going to work in Binghamton, where there is only 1 lane that serves all passengers and all gates. Are they going to slap up a label that says "Family friendly since November 2008"? Or should I just chalk this up to the general cluelessness of someone who's never flown into a small airport?
Not that family travel isn't an issue at smaller airports. Especially in a place with just one security screening line, it's easy for a single passenger or group to create a bottleneck, whether it's a family with small children who choose this moment to demonstrate that they are overstressed and underslept, or infrequent travelers who haven't figured out the byzantine rules governing modern air travel. This summer when I flew out of Binghamton I had the misfortune to be behind a senior citizen who could not understand why he couldn't carry the coffee he had just purchased through the security screening checkpoint. His wife chimed in that she'd warned him he couldn't take the coffee, and as the two began bickering, the rest of us wondered if we really needed to be here for this drama or if we could just catch the reruns on Fox's next edition of "When Spouses Attack."
Can you tell I've just purchased the tickets to head south over the holidays? But I'm skipping Binghamton and going out of Syracuse instead, so I can take a direct flight. Not being stranded in a connecting hub is worth the extra bucks and drive up I-81 in the winter.
Wonder how that's going to work in Binghamton, where there is only 1 lane that serves all passengers and all gates. Are they going to slap up a label that says "Family friendly since November 2008"? Or should I just chalk this up to the general cluelessness of someone who's never flown into a small airport?
Not that family travel isn't an issue at smaller airports. Especially in a place with just one security screening line, it's easy for a single passenger or group to create a bottleneck, whether it's a family with small children who choose this moment to demonstrate that they are overstressed and underslept, or infrequent travelers who haven't figured out the byzantine rules governing modern air travel. This summer when I flew out of Binghamton I had the misfortune to be behind a senior citizen who could not understand why he couldn't carry the coffee he had just purchased through the security screening checkpoint. His wife chimed in that she'd warned him he couldn't take the coffee, and as the two began bickering, the rest of us wondered if we really needed to be here for this drama or if we could just catch the reruns on Fox's next edition of "When Spouses Attack."
Can you tell I've just purchased the tickets to head south over the holidays? But I'm skipping Binghamton and going out of Syracuse instead, so I can take a direct flight. Not being stranded in a connecting hub is worth the extra bucks and drive up I-81 in the winter.