Life in a small town

[pbray]

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.

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. Small regional airports -- ours has one, or at most two, check-in lines for each airline. One TSA screening line for each set of gates, with a TSA crew changing from one to the other depending on airline schedule.

For an airport that claims the modifier "international" in the title. Of course, most of the international flights are troops heading over to the Sand Box, which introduces more fun into screening.

"Colonel, are you aware that your troops are carrying knives?"

"I certainly hope so!"

We avoid flying.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Um, yes, but at the Binghamton Airport, you sometimes have to check in at a desk designated for a *different airline*, because there are no people at all at, say the Northwest counters.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a bit like the Off-off-off-Broadway version of a major airport.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Yup.

Speaking of, I remember when I was in grad school, seeing an episode of the X-Files in which Mulder (supposedly!) goes to Upstate NY, and somehow manages to run through considerably more of the "Syracuse Airport" than actually exists.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

:-)

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

My husband and I once stayed at a motel in Vancouver that we recognized from at least half a dozen different episodes of X-Files set in different places (none of which, needless to say, was Vancouver). We frequently amuse ourselves by spotting bits of Toronto in American TV shows set in places like New York, Chicago and Boston :)

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Ah, small-town airports ... Many years ago my family went to a wedding in Kelowna, BC. When we checked in at the airport for our flight back to Calgary, my mother (who grew up, as you know, in a small town in Connecticut, but had by that time been living in one large-ish city or another for thirty years or so) asked what gate our flight left from. The check-in dude said, and I quote, "Ma'am, this is Kelowna. There's only one gate."

I'm guessing the answer is general cluelessness. Although perhaps Binghamton will be very lucky and will get to build some new security lanes, so that it, like Bradley Field International Airport, can be constantly under construction and totally unnavigable and wrapped in caution tape for the next ∞ years...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I don't know what it is about Bradley, but it's always been a mess. And with the post-9/11 security changes, it's gotten even worse.

While our Binghamton airport has 7 gates! We even have a jetway, so for some flights you don't have to walk outside and climb the metal stairs to get on your flight.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Well. Seven if you're generous in your interpretation of "gate." They have enough space on the tarmac to park seven planes, anyway. But doesn't everyone still come in through the same two doors?

[pbray.livejournal.com]

There are THREE doors... but they only use two of them

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. I remember the third door now.

The Elmira airport only has two. It also only lays claim to four gates. Must be some kind of formula they use to determine how many doors lead to how many, er, plane parking spaces.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I don't know what it is about Bradley, but it's always been a mess.

It's trapped in one of those eddies in the space-time continuum, if you ask me.

We even have a jetway, so for some flights you don't have to walk outside and climb the metal stairs to get on your flight.

Wow, fancy!! ;^) (At Pearson Int'l in Toronto, which is a really excessively large airport, you still have to walk out onto the tarmac and climb the metal stairs for quite a few flights -- the ones to places like Detroit and Hartford for which they use prop planes. And to get to the gates where you board those flights, you have to walk for about a year and then take a special bus. It's a whole Process. And I secretly kind of like it, because when you walk right up to the plane and you're practically close enough to touch the propellers, then you know you're really getting on a real plane, dagnabbit. (And also, you can see what's making it go.))

[pbray.livejournal.com]

>>And also, you can see what's making it go.))


And if you see duct tape on the propellers, you know it's time to go back inside and wait for another plane.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

... so you won't be flying Air Red Green (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Green_Show) any time soon, then ;^)