Seeing as how this is easily the most widely read of my multiple blogs, I thought I'd summarize the state of air travel in the past two weeks, judging from my trip to California (blogged thoroughly at CA Blog).
The friendly skies are not friendly any more, but they are not unfriendly. If you consider that I was hitting the airways at a completely random time of the year, not in the middle of some holiday or other, I would take that as a snapshot of the industry as a whole; I saw nothing whatsoever of air rage or flared tempers or anything at ALL that is so popular to plaster all over the media these days.
At Montreal, where I was to board a 6:45 a.m. flight, the Delta agent at the counter was incredibly nice and we had some comments about the olden days of air travel, because I was in a pink jacket with a silk vintage tie and black shirt and most folk don't travel that way any more. I asked him if the pink jacket would be a problem anywhere and he said "Hell no, it's great to see someone dressed up like you are."
For some unknown reason the letters SSSS were stamped on my boarding card so at security, which was not very busy, I was pulled aside for a special check during which I was put through a body scanner and pretty much had to take off everything I was wearing. But everyone was very pleasant, and the CATSA guy who informed me that he had to look in my bag was very polite, and when I said "A lot of junk is probably going to fly out -- maybe we shouldn't do it on the conveyor" he didn't blink an eye, took the bag off to another table and patiently waited for me to get all my things back together before he let me open the bag. It was packed okay, although the bulk of it was my large camera case which was packed with gadgets: iPad, video camera, four lenses, cables, and other paraphernalia.
I explained to him what everything was even though he didn't ask me to, and I was quickly on my way. US customs was crowded due to the "sequester" but my agent was a very pleasant fellow who asked about my Pan Am bag and again, we reminisced about the golden days of air travel.
I even had the temerity to ask him what the designation SSSS meant, something technically maybe you shouldn't ask border personnel, but without a blink he said "Oh, it's just a random pullout for special screening." My left foot, but I'm all for profiling. I don't "look" Arabic but these days you don't have to, and I was in the right demographic (55) and who knows, maybe that day Al Qaeda was trying yet another one of their fucked up little experiments that only their ragheads and Neanderthal motivations could come up with.
And my flights, although not "fun" in the ordinary sense of the word, were okay -- to ATL and then LAX and then OAK, two legs of which were on regional jets, so everything was cramped as usual but I was delighted with the new innovation of FREE online Internet. I was, quite frankly, blown away. Now if they had only thought of a power plug in my seat I would have been in Heaven.
In fact, ALL the airports I was in had free, fast wi-fi, and for someone who likes to blog a sneeze, that was very pleasurable.
The walks between gates in some cases were a drag -- Minneapolis is easily the worst airport, up there with Dorval as being the airports with the most distance between gates (and gates and Immigration) but as long as you can walk you're okay.
The flights themselves were completely thrill-free, which is just how I like them, and all the pilots laughed at my worn out "Paper wasp in the pitot tube" joke (a practically new 757 was brought down by wasps having built nests in their pitot tubes, little things on the side of the plane that gauge airspeed and altitude -- somewhat important data for pilots to know) because the plane had been parked for three weeks at some airport in Costa Rica and no one had thought to cover them.
All in all, it's very good to know the system; to treat all the workers as the human beings they are; that in difficult situations like delays the operations personnel are just as anxious to get you on your way as you are and there is no point at all in making a fuss about something almost no one has any control over (weather delays) and to remember at all times that most of these people are making annual salaries (pilots as well) about equal to your average city bus driver.
Moral of the story: treat others as you would have them treat you in any and all occasions. And trust me, somehow you'll get from A to B. I promise you that.