I have always been fascinated with travel, exotic locations and foreign cultures.
My grandmother once said I was born with a hopeless case of wanderlust.
The adrenaline rush I experience when embarking on a journey towards the friendly skies is probably due to a combination of factors- a secret weakness for handsome pilots, a longtime fear of flying and barely containable excitement in anticipation of the next exotic destination.
I flew alone for the first time at age 8 to visit my grandparents in Florida.
Feeling like a superstar in a brand new lime green denim pantsuit and Dorothy Hammill bobb, I sashayed through the terminal on the first of many solitary journeys and relished the enormous sense of freedom.
Children traveling alone sat in first class and the biggest disappointment on that memorable flight was the lunch consisting of steak and grilled vegetables while the passengers in coach enjoyed hot dogs and potato chips.
For domestic travelers, hot meals have given way to miniature bags of pretzels and cans of soda.
Long delays, overbooked flights, crowded runways, shortages in airline personnel and small crowded planes have rendered the overall travel experience to something akin to cattle prods or Manhattan subway rides during rush hour.
There is little compensation to placate the disheveled passenger aside from snack food and unkempt lavatories.
Recently during an evening flight from Charleston to New York I requested a glass of wine and was informed the plane "ran out of alcohol" during the previous flight and had not yet replenished the supply.
The good old days are over- passengers can no longer stash a private supply of mini bottles in a carry-on bag because security confiscates all liquids.
It seems that mini bottles of Smirnoff, eyebrow tweezers, and bottles of skin moisturizer somehow present a terrorist threat.
Imagine the danger potentially posed by these items with a frenzied passenger bursting into the cockpit, overpowering the pilot, saturating him with skin moisturizer, plucking his eyebrows and forcing him to do shots of Smirnoff during flight.
Likewise, perhaps the raving terrorist could overpower the trusted passengers seated in the exit row by offering them a free spa treatment with skin moisturizing, eyebrow plucking and free Smirnoff, leaving them sluggish and incompetent in the event of an unforeseen emergency.
Airports provide optimal breeding grounds for the most sophisticated sociological case studies in the modern world.
Where else do so many distinct cultures and varying life paths intersect in a captive environment at record speed 24 hours a day with millions of worlds colliding in joy and sorrow, grief and celebration, through a complex human labyrinth?I recently found myself faced with an unfortunate travel mishap and rage faded to frustration as I resigned myself to spending seven hours at New York's LaGuardia Airport.
What could have been a miserable experience turned into a rare creative opportunity.
The fiasco began with blatant misinformation provided by a Travelocity telephone representative on the evening prior to my ordeal.
The moral of the story is twofold: Never accept information from a secondary source without adequate documentation and do not attempt to fly standby unless you have purchased a first class ticket.
Despite the fact that I was a ticketed passenger attempting to fly home a day early on a regional jet with 22 open seats, I was denied a seat on the plane, required to purchase an entirely new ticket and forced to spend 7 hours at the airport simply because my previously held ticket was a "restricted" fare (i.
e.
cheap ticket).
It appears that standby no longer exists for coach passengers and optimal customer service is a thing of the past with the exception of first and business class.
What should one do when airport ticket agents throw lemons? Make lemonade! Better yet- find the nearest airport bar and order a Bloody Mary!Several hours later I was the star of the Chili's Restaurant at LaGuardia Airport as frustrated passengers literally lined up to be interviewed for the Charleston Mercury about their past and present travel disasters.
First there was Diana from Minneapolis who was heading to New York for a wedding when she was informed the plane had been "downsized" and passengers were randomly selected (Diana included) to be removed from the flight.
Diana was offered a choice between flying into an entirely different and less convenient airport and arranging her own transportation or waiting three hours for the next flight out of Minneapolis.
The mother of the bride arrived at the airport at 7:45 AM and was informed her plane was experiencing "unscheduled maintenance problems"; she did not arrive in New York until 5PM and almost missed her daughter's rehearsal dinner.
A third family with three young children traveling from Minneapolis to attend the same wedding also experienced "unscheduled maintenance problems" and arrived in New York at 3AM on the morning following their scheduled lunchtime arrival.
A group of pilots eating lunch at Chili's rejected me completely, refusing to be interviewed citing "strict company policy" and "conflicts of interest".
I anticipated as much but hey- it never hurts to try.
Next there was Heidi who laughingly told the story of a flight from Little Rock Arkansas to New York where passengers were informed a new guy "just started" with ground crew and erroneously filled the fuel tank too high, causing excess weight on the plane.
The flight was delayed for hours as three separate trucks attempted to siphon the fuel back out of the tank.
Heidi's male companion recalled flying into Little Rock from Charlotte and being informed there was no gate prepared for the passengers to disembark because the ground crew was "completely unaware" of the plane's scheduled landing.
The passengers were left to sit for hours on the ground and compensated with miniature bags of pretzels.
Lenore, an elderly woman from Salt Lake City, spoke longingly of air travel years ago when the planes were large and luxurious, her young daughter was escorted to an in-flight play area, and the meals consisted of special treats like eggs benedict, lobster and steak.
Debbie, a middle aged woman from Arkansas, recalled her lifelong dream vacation this past summer when she flew to Honolulu with her children for a Hawaiian cruise but experienced such horrible delays that she missed the cruise ship and was stuck in Honolulu with no place to stay.
Debbie literally pleaded with the agent in Honolulu to provide her family with hotel vouchers for the night.
Weary and jetlagged, the family was declined accommodations at the first hotel despite their airline vouchers and sent back on a bus to a second hotel where they caught several hours of sleep before catching an island hopper to meet the ship the following day.
Finally, there was Linda, a lovely woman from Mobile Alabama with a delightful southern drawl.
Linda was traveling with her 19 year old Shih Tzu named Foo when she was abruptly stopped at the gate of her connecting flight and informed Foo would have to travel in the baggage compartment.
Horrified, Linda explained that Foo, a seasoned traveler with a Louis Vuitton carry case and custom made mink coat, never traveled in the baggage compartment and would "simply die" of fright.
The gate attendants were less than empathic, and Linda and Foo ultimately aborted the flight A day spent at LaGuardia Airport was not such a bad experience after all- in fact valuable lessons were learned about people and life in general.
People are natural storytellers, everyone has a tale to tell and when given the opportunity, most are happy to share their adventures.
The most irritating and inconvenient moments in life are the same ones that bring tears of laughter to our eyes years down the road.
It is amazingly sad how many people we fail to see during the course of our lives; we rush past each other like ships passing in the night.
The next time you find yourself stuck in an airport with idle time to spare, try closing your book, shutting down your laptop, ignoring your cell phone, tuning out your ipod and taking a good look at the world pulsing and buzzing around you.
Remember that the individual journey matters and people are special and unique.
If you open your eyes wide and pay close attention, you might even notice a 19 year-old Shih Tzu dressed in a custom made mink coat.
My grandmother once said I was born with a hopeless case of wanderlust.
The adrenaline rush I experience when embarking on a journey towards the friendly skies is probably due to a combination of factors- a secret weakness for handsome pilots, a longtime fear of flying and barely containable excitement in anticipation of the next exotic destination.
I flew alone for the first time at age 8 to visit my grandparents in Florida.
Feeling like a superstar in a brand new lime green denim pantsuit and Dorothy Hammill bobb, I sashayed through the terminal on the first of many solitary journeys and relished the enormous sense of freedom.
Children traveling alone sat in first class and the biggest disappointment on that memorable flight was the lunch consisting of steak and grilled vegetables while the passengers in coach enjoyed hot dogs and potato chips.
For domestic travelers, hot meals have given way to miniature bags of pretzels and cans of soda.
Long delays, overbooked flights, crowded runways, shortages in airline personnel and small crowded planes have rendered the overall travel experience to something akin to cattle prods or Manhattan subway rides during rush hour.
There is little compensation to placate the disheveled passenger aside from snack food and unkempt lavatories.
Recently during an evening flight from Charleston to New York I requested a glass of wine and was informed the plane "ran out of alcohol" during the previous flight and had not yet replenished the supply.
The good old days are over- passengers can no longer stash a private supply of mini bottles in a carry-on bag because security confiscates all liquids.
It seems that mini bottles of Smirnoff, eyebrow tweezers, and bottles of skin moisturizer somehow present a terrorist threat.
Imagine the danger potentially posed by these items with a frenzied passenger bursting into the cockpit, overpowering the pilot, saturating him with skin moisturizer, plucking his eyebrows and forcing him to do shots of Smirnoff during flight.
Likewise, perhaps the raving terrorist could overpower the trusted passengers seated in the exit row by offering them a free spa treatment with skin moisturizing, eyebrow plucking and free Smirnoff, leaving them sluggish and incompetent in the event of an unforeseen emergency.
Airports provide optimal breeding grounds for the most sophisticated sociological case studies in the modern world.
Where else do so many distinct cultures and varying life paths intersect in a captive environment at record speed 24 hours a day with millions of worlds colliding in joy and sorrow, grief and celebration, through a complex human labyrinth?I recently found myself faced with an unfortunate travel mishap and rage faded to frustration as I resigned myself to spending seven hours at New York's LaGuardia Airport.
What could have been a miserable experience turned into a rare creative opportunity.
The fiasco began with blatant misinformation provided by a Travelocity telephone representative on the evening prior to my ordeal.
The moral of the story is twofold: Never accept information from a secondary source without adequate documentation and do not attempt to fly standby unless you have purchased a first class ticket.
Despite the fact that I was a ticketed passenger attempting to fly home a day early on a regional jet with 22 open seats, I was denied a seat on the plane, required to purchase an entirely new ticket and forced to spend 7 hours at the airport simply because my previously held ticket was a "restricted" fare (i.
e.
cheap ticket).
It appears that standby no longer exists for coach passengers and optimal customer service is a thing of the past with the exception of first and business class.
What should one do when airport ticket agents throw lemons? Make lemonade! Better yet- find the nearest airport bar and order a Bloody Mary!Several hours later I was the star of the Chili's Restaurant at LaGuardia Airport as frustrated passengers literally lined up to be interviewed for the Charleston Mercury about their past and present travel disasters.
First there was Diana from Minneapolis who was heading to New York for a wedding when she was informed the plane had been "downsized" and passengers were randomly selected (Diana included) to be removed from the flight.
Diana was offered a choice between flying into an entirely different and less convenient airport and arranging her own transportation or waiting three hours for the next flight out of Minneapolis.
The mother of the bride arrived at the airport at 7:45 AM and was informed her plane was experiencing "unscheduled maintenance problems"; she did not arrive in New York until 5PM and almost missed her daughter's rehearsal dinner.
A third family with three young children traveling from Minneapolis to attend the same wedding also experienced "unscheduled maintenance problems" and arrived in New York at 3AM on the morning following their scheduled lunchtime arrival.
A group of pilots eating lunch at Chili's rejected me completely, refusing to be interviewed citing "strict company policy" and "conflicts of interest".
I anticipated as much but hey- it never hurts to try.
Next there was Heidi who laughingly told the story of a flight from Little Rock Arkansas to New York where passengers were informed a new guy "just started" with ground crew and erroneously filled the fuel tank too high, causing excess weight on the plane.
The flight was delayed for hours as three separate trucks attempted to siphon the fuel back out of the tank.
Heidi's male companion recalled flying into Little Rock from Charlotte and being informed there was no gate prepared for the passengers to disembark because the ground crew was "completely unaware" of the plane's scheduled landing.
The passengers were left to sit for hours on the ground and compensated with miniature bags of pretzels.
Lenore, an elderly woman from Salt Lake City, spoke longingly of air travel years ago when the planes were large and luxurious, her young daughter was escorted to an in-flight play area, and the meals consisted of special treats like eggs benedict, lobster and steak.
Debbie, a middle aged woman from Arkansas, recalled her lifelong dream vacation this past summer when she flew to Honolulu with her children for a Hawaiian cruise but experienced such horrible delays that she missed the cruise ship and was stuck in Honolulu with no place to stay.
Debbie literally pleaded with the agent in Honolulu to provide her family with hotel vouchers for the night.
Weary and jetlagged, the family was declined accommodations at the first hotel despite their airline vouchers and sent back on a bus to a second hotel where they caught several hours of sleep before catching an island hopper to meet the ship the following day.
Finally, there was Linda, a lovely woman from Mobile Alabama with a delightful southern drawl.
Linda was traveling with her 19 year old Shih Tzu named Foo when she was abruptly stopped at the gate of her connecting flight and informed Foo would have to travel in the baggage compartment.
Horrified, Linda explained that Foo, a seasoned traveler with a Louis Vuitton carry case and custom made mink coat, never traveled in the baggage compartment and would "simply die" of fright.
The gate attendants were less than empathic, and Linda and Foo ultimately aborted the flight A day spent at LaGuardia Airport was not such a bad experience after all- in fact valuable lessons were learned about people and life in general.
People are natural storytellers, everyone has a tale to tell and when given the opportunity, most are happy to share their adventures.
The most irritating and inconvenient moments in life are the same ones that bring tears of laughter to our eyes years down the road.
It is amazingly sad how many people we fail to see during the course of our lives; we rush past each other like ships passing in the night.
The next time you find yourself stuck in an airport with idle time to spare, try closing your book, shutting down your laptop, ignoring your cell phone, tuning out your ipod and taking a good look at the world pulsing and buzzing around you.
Remember that the individual journey matters and people are special and unique.
If you open your eyes wide and pay close attention, you might even notice a 19 year-old Shih Tzu dressed in a custom made mink coat.