Journeying home
02/05/24 00:48
Cleveland has a busy airport with flights coming and going around the clock. And Seattle is an even bigger and busier airport. Bellingham International, on the other hand is a very small airport with not many flights. BLI doesn’t even have a jetway. You board planes by walking up a ramp. I don’t mind the ramp or the small airport. I grew up around all kinds of airports and our home base was a very small airport. I like airports. I like to look at the planes. I like to watch the people come and go. I like to imagine all of the destinations. Being in an airport seems like an adventure.
Yesterday was a day of airports. Because BLI is a very small airport, there aren’t many flights that depart from or go into it. Since I chose to avoid the hassle of a more than two-hour drive to Seattle followed by a two-hour line to get through one of the world’s least efficient security checkpoints by flying in and out of Bellingham for this trip. And because I am no longer a business traveler, but a retired pastor who doesn’t travel very much, I have no mileage points to trade for seat changes or access to airline club facilities. And since I am retired and have significant flexibility of time, I asked the person who was making travel arrangements for this week’s meetings in Cleveland to schedule my flights so that I would not have to miss a minute of the meetings. So, my ticket was purchased with a return yesterday even though the meetings were completed the evening before. That meant that I woke up in a hotel room and had the day to myself before catching a flight out of Cleveland at 6 in the evening. Then, though the magic of traveling across several time zones heading west, I had another 2 1/2 hours in Seattle before catching my flight into Bellingham.
I had planned to stay at the hotel until checkout time at 12 noon before heading to the airport, realizing that it would still leave me 5 hours or so of extra time at the airport. I had plenty of work that I could do on my computer while I waited. Modern airports have counters and desks with power outlets where it is comfortable to sit and work. There are coffee shops and restaurants so that snacks and meals are easily obtained. I met a colleague for coffee in the morning and decided to share a ride with him to the airport, arriving hours before my departure.
I have walked the full length of all of the concourses at the Cleveland airport. I got my walk in without going outside. I saw people napping in the airport, but that isn’t my style. I can sleep on an airplane, but I stay a bit too much “on guard” when in the airport to be able to sleep. There is a limit to how many cups of tea one can drink and though it is tempting to purchase a lot of snacks, I don’t need the calories and the cost in the airport is high. Airports are designed around quick meals and moving on. Although I found a good salad for lunch and took my time eating it, that only take so much time. Perhaps the most interesting thing that happened in the Cleveland airport was that at one point in the afternoon all of the fire alarms in Concourse A went off. I was flying out of Concourse C so didn’t pay much attention, but having time to burn and being a bit too curious for my own good, I decided to go see what the commotion was all about. At Concourse A, the alarms were blaring and bright lights were flashing. Firemen in bunker gear were going from room to room checking all of the smoke and fire alarms. The interesting thing was that no one seemed to be reacting to the loud noises at all. The area was not evacuated. People just went on with their business as usual, ordering coffee at the coffee shop, napping on the cushions, working at the kiosks, heading to their crowded gates. When the alarms were finally silenced, it was a relief, but nothing else changed. I assume that it was a false alarm, but no information was offered over the PA system. It makes me wonder what would happen if there were a real emergency. Would people simply ignore the alarms? Would airport management fail to use the PA system to give instructions? I’ll probably never know.
It is interesting to see how people work in airports. I saw people sitting in front of their computers participating in Zoom meetings while they waited for their planes. I
Watching people work wasn’t that entertaining. Seasoned travelers seem bored with the process and try to make it look like their behavior is and everyday occurrence, which I suppose it is for some of them. It is a lot more fun to watch families traveling with young children. Those people need to have a lot of baggage. Generally there is a stroller to help move the child down the long corridors and cover the big distances in a modern airport. The children are usually a bit disoriented. This isn’t an everyday occurrence for them. They catch the excitement of travel and are interested in seeing all that is going on around them, but they have no concept of the distance that needs to be covered or the timeline that is weighing on their parents. A four-year-old doesn’t understand that she must take off her headphones to go through the security checkpoint and she doesn’t know for sure that she will get them back. And she can focus on a single item - her headphones - while her parents are worrying about getting everything collected after it passes through the machine without leaving any belongings behind. And they are trying to get to their gate on time and know they are already running late. And they might be running low on sleep because being a parent requires a whole lot of energy. Frazzled parents and a focused preschooler is rarely a calm or quiet situation. Then there is the two-year old who wants to run because he has never seen such a long hallway and it seems like he can run forever. He doesn’t have to worry about his safety as he has trusted his adults to take care of that.
I have heard some business travelers complain about children in airports and on airlines, but I am grateful for them. I wish the airlines had the option of requesting a seat near a family with children. I’d go for that option every time. I probably wouldn’t be much help to the parents and the children would probably be fearful of me. But I can be thoroughly entertained for hours just watching children and their interactions with their parents. I’m safely home and eager to return to some of my routines.
Yesterday was a day of airports. Because BLI is a very small airport, there aren’t many flights that depart from or go into it. Since I chose to avoid the hassle of a more than two-hour drive to Seattle followed by a two-hour line to get through one of the world’s least efficient security checkpoints by flying in and out of Bellingham for this trip. And because I am no longer a business traveler, but a retired pastor who doesn’t travel very much, I have no mileage points to trade for seat changes or access to airline club facilities. And since I am retired and have significant flexibility of time, I asked the person who was making travel arrangements for this week’s meetings in Cleveland to schedule my flights so that I would not have to miss a minute of the meetings. So, my ticket was purchased with a return yesterday even though the meetings were completed the evening before. That meant that I woke up in a hotel room and had the day to myself before catching a flight out of Cleveland at 6 in the evening. Then, though the magic of traveling across several time zones heading west, I had another 2 1/2 hours in Seattle before catching my flight into Bellingham.
I had planned to stay at the hotel until checkout time at 12 noon before heading to the airport, realizing that it would still leave me 5 hours or so of extra time at the airport. I had plenty of work that I could do on my computer while I waited. Modern airports have counters and desks with power outlets where it is comfortable to sit and work. There are coffee shops and restaurants so that snacks and meals are easily obtained. I met a colleague for coffee in the morning and decided to share a ride with him to the airport, arriving hours before my departure.
I have walked the full length of all of the concourses at the Cleveland airport. I got my walk in without going outside. I saw people napping in the airport, but that isn’t my style. I can sleep on an airplane, but I stay a bit too much “on guard” when in the airport to be able to sleep. There is a limit to how many cups of tea one can drink and though it is tempting to purchase a lot of snacks, I don’t need the calories and the cost in the airport is high. Airports are designed around quick meals and moving on. Although I found a good salad for lunch and took my time eating it, that only take so much time. Perhaps the most interesting thing that happened in the Cleveland airport was that at one point in the afternoon all of the fire alarms in Concourse A went off. I was flying out of Concourse C so didn’t pay much attention, but having time to burn and being a bit too curious for my own good, I decided to go see what the commotion was all about. At Concourse A, the alarms were blaring and bright lights were flashing. Firemen in bunker gear were going from room to room checking all of the smoke and fire alarms. The interesting thing was that no one seemed to be reacting to the loud noises at all. The area was not evacuated. People just went on with their business as usual, ordering coffee at the coffee shop, napping on the cushions, working at the kiosks, heading to their crowded gates. When the alarms were finally silenced, it was a relief, but nothing else changed. I assume that it was a false alarm, but no information was offered over the PA system. It makes me wonder what would happen if there were a real emergency. Would people simply ignore the alarms? Would airport management fail to use the PA system to give instructions? I’ll probably never know.
It is interesting to see how people work in airports. I saw people sitting in front of their computers participating in Zoom meetings while they waited for their planes. I
Watching people work wasn’t that entertaining. Seasoned travelers seem bored with the process and try to make it look like their behavior is and everyday occurrence, which I suppose it is for some of them. It is a lot more fun to watch families traveling with young children. Those people need to have a lot of baggage. Generally there is a stroller to help move the child down the long corridors and cover the big distances in a modern airport. The children are usually a bit disoriented. This isn’t an everyday occurrence for them. They catch the excitement of travel and are interested in seeing all that is going on around them, but they have no concept of the distance that needs to be covered or the timeline that is weighing on their parents. A four-year-old doesn’t understand that she must take off her headphones to go through the security checkpoint and she doesn’t know for sure that she will get them back. And she can focus on a single item - her headphones - while her parents are worrying about getting everything collected after it passes through the machine without leaving any belongings behind. And they are trying to get to their gate on time and know they are already running late. And they might be running low on sleep because being a parent requires a whole lot of energy. Frazzled parents and a focused preschooler is rarely a calm or quiet situation. Then there is the two-year old who wants to run because he has never seen such a long hallway and it seems like he can run forever. He doesn’t have to worry about his safety as he has trusted his adults to take care of that.
I have heard some business travelers complain about children in airports and on airlines, but I am grateful for them. I wish the airlines had the option of requesting a seat near a family with children. I’d go for that option every time. I probably wouldn’t be much help to the parents and the children would probably be fearful of me. But I can be thoroughly entertained for hours just watching children and their interactions with their parents. I’m safely home and eager to return to some of my routines.
