pbray: (Default)
pbray ([personal profile] pbray) wrote2008-11-19 10:21 am

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.

[identity profile] jjschwabach.livejournal.com 2008-11-19 09:05 pm (UTC)(link)
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.

[identity profile] pbray.livejournal.com 2008-11-20 03:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, it's a bit like the Off-off-off-Broadway version of a major airport.

[identity profile] jjschwabach.livejournal.com 2008-11-21 12:30 am (UTC)(link)
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.

[identity profile] pbray.livejournal.com 2008-11-21 06:17 pm (UTC)(link)
:-)

[identity profile] sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com 2008-11-23 11:46 pm (UTC)(link)
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 :)