Life in a small town
Nov. 19th, 2008 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-19 03:54 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-19 09:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-20 03:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-21 12:30 am (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-21 06:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-23 11:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-20 02:25 pm (UTC)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
FieldInternational Airport, can be constantly under construction and totally unnavigable and wrapped in caution tape for the next ∞ years...(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-20 03:38 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-21 12:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-21 06:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-21 10:31 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-21 01:40 am (UTC)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.))
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-21 06:16 pm (UTC)And if you see duct tape on the propellers, you know it's time to go back inside and wait for another plane.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-23 11:44 pm (UTC)