I Just Read About That…

When I was a kid, airplanes were pretty awesome.  They were luxurious, exotic and wonderful.  I remember one of my first flights when I was a kid, 7 or 8 years old, and being invited up into the cockpit.  I also remember getting “wings” for being a young traveler (thanks Eastern Airlines, RIP).  There was also something exotic and sexy about being a stewardess or a pilot or anyone associated with the airlines back then.  We watched The Bob Newhart Show recently, and Howard the neighbor leads a glamorous life as a pilot with hot stewardesses clinging to his arms.

Even as recent as 2000, I flew to Vancouver on New Years Eve 1999 and was not only one of about 6 people on the flight, I was given a glass of champagne (and was introduced to couscous on my in-flight meal).  Flying was fun.  Stewards and stewardesses were nice, they actually seemed to care about you, and offered a smile when you talked to them.

Now, I realize that September 11, 2001, as they say, changed everything.

This past week my family traveled to the Virgin Islands.  We flew into San Juan and then to St. Thomas. Our port of departure was Newark International Airport.  I’ve noticed this before, but it has become painfully obvious the more we fly (and sadly, we’ve had to fly more lately): Newark Airport looks just like what it is: a cobbled together, half-assed, transparently bad attempt to band-aid a problem. And this same scenario is global, as far as I can tell.

Before the terrorist attacks, an airport was a microcosm of interesting things: shops that were not necessarily the same all over the country–local flavor could be found in some of the interesting stores and knickknacks.  And, while overpriced and somewhat bland, you could get some interesting “local” foods in airports.

But now, in Newark anyhow, they threw up these security gates right in the middle of the airport.  You’re expected to arrive two hours early.  It’s in your best interest to get to security as quickly as possibly because sometimes it can take an hour to get through.  [Really??? An hour to get through??  I’ve seen people miss their flights because of the bottleneck here.]  And once you are through security, you’d be a fool to go back out into the pre-security area.  And heaven forbid you have a layover, or a delay [Delay?  What’s that?], you can’t explore beyond the security checkpoints anymore without having to go through the whole rigmarole all over again.

The Newark Airport has placed their security checkpoints at the busiest, tiniest, intersection of stairs and elevators, so there’s nowhere to wait for arrivals, there’s nowhere to stand while you’re waiting on line, and if you have kids, there’s hundreds of places they can run.  While it’s true that there probably isn’t a “better” place for them, it still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a terrible location.

If you’re smart, you’ve arrived early, and gotten through security and now you must wait for an hour or more [what delays?] in a small section of the airport where you can get chain fast food or overpriced concessions.  The Newark Airport has a few shops (like the audiophile booth where you can buy MP3 players or headphones) which would be excellent places to waste time while waiting for your flight, unfortunately they are now inaccessible.

Oh, but we forgot about the indignity of the strip.  The previous time we flew, my then two-year-old was reduced to tears because he had to take of his Crocs.  And, how do you explain to a two year old why he has to take off his favorite shoes while a line is grumbling behind him, and men and women in uniform are scowling at him?  In fact, how do you possibly get two kids through the security gates and a stroller, three carry-ons, including a laptop, three pairs of shoes, and everything in your pockets into lunch trays and onto a conveyor belt in an orderly and remotely expedient fashion?

And then you get the most absurd thing of all, the latest in a series of “how far can we push them before they fight back” indignities: no drinks.  Because some asshole brought possible explosives on an airplane, we are now unable to bring a Coke from home onto an airplane.  Or, get this, toothpaste, or face wash, or even water.  Oh, unless it is water for a baby formula, then it’s okay.  How arbitrary is that?  I couldn’t bring my bottle of water on, but when we said we needed the water to make a bottle, suddenly that was okay.  (Don’t get me wrong I was greatly appreciative, but come on!).  On the way home, we had to put the bottle that my daughter was drinking [taking it from her mouth] to run it through the X-ray machine.

Now, as we all know, the aforementioned assholes were found not guilty of planning to blow up airplanes with liquids.  (They were planning on using them for other evil asshole purposes, true, but not blowing up a plane.)  And yet we are still stuck with this asinine and arbitrary regulation.   When we were flying back home, we knew we’d have a long layover so we put 3 Coke cans in our carry on.  They were confiscated.  Now, these were sealed cans.  All we had to do was open them to prove that.  I told the person that we were going to be in the airport for an hour, and couldn’t we just drink them before we got on the plane?  She informed me that we could, if she stood with us and watched us.  It was only later that I wished I had asked her to do just that.  Rather, I chugged half a can of Coke right there on line.  Then, moments later my wife was really angered to find out that she couldn’t bring her brand new toothpaste or her face wash on the plane.  As she pointed out, the worst part was that they are just going to throw the stuff away.

Who is this benefiting?  Only the vendors in the airport, where you now have to buy their overpirced water, Coke, toothpaste or anything else that you might have wanted to bring on board.  In fact, when the initial ban was put in place, you could bring NO liquids on (instead of the travels sized ones now).  When they altered the ban to the current arbitrary one, it seems that businesses benefitted most from this change.

I am seriously thinking that we should start billing the TSA for all of our confiscated items, or have them mail them to our houses instead.

Here’s the real kicker: the plane we flew on from St Thomas to San Juan was an 8 person Cessna.  This meant that all of our luggage, carry-on and checked were put IN THE SAME PLACE.  So, if we had put our toothpaste in the checked luggage it would be resting safely right next to the carry on that we had originally packed it in.

Inefficient, insane, incomprehensible.  These are the words that describe the TSA.

And, to get back to my original premise: flight attendants have absolutely no job satisfaction.  My 11 month old daughter (poor victim in all of this) finally fell asleep on my shoulder.  About ten minutes later, the flight attendant parked her beverage cart right next to her head, and proceeded to dispense drinks.  Okay, fine.  She then proceeded to drip ice cubes on me (and most likely on her) and then emptied TWO bags of ice into her cart.  All of this no more than inches from her head.  She must have been parked next to us for ten minutes.  And so, when the noise finally woke up my daughter (who needed more than a twenty minute nap–and, of course, we needed her to sleep a lot longer than that), the stewardess looked at her and said, and I kid you not, “Oh, did I wake you?”  That’s a far cry from the commercial where the stewardess picks up the pillow that the sleeping passenger has dropped and tucks it under his head.