Well-done, Please

Some random thoughts on air travel.

I hate Chicago’s O’Hare airport. It’s absurdly huge and signage and maps are in woefully short supply. Of the 20 or so airports I’ve passed through in the past two years, this is by far the least “traveler friendly.” I’m by no means an expert, but I have considerably more flying experience than the average traveler and I was confused for a good twenty minutes. Example: in St. Louis, my flight left from gate B7. Terminal B, gate 7. Easy-peasy, Japanesey. My flight to Minneapolis-St. Paul, which leaves in 35 minutes, is is doing so from Terminal 2, Concourse B, Gate 13, Subgate A. That's right: 2B13A. I wouldn’t have been surprised to “catch a niner in there somewhere.” Chicago’s Midway airport, the hub I used this March went I came to see Queen is infinitely more navigable.

The ban on liquids and gels (and Chapstick!) is not being enforced very well, at least not in St. Louis or here at O’Hare. They announce that you aren’t allowed to carry them on board, but I easily could’ve smuggled on that disgusting green Powerade I bought out of desperation (Note: the slogan for Powerade is “Liquid Hydration.” Duh.) Once on board, they hand out bottled water, juices, etc. Sure, a very sharp flight attendant could notice my bottled water label didn’t match, but I’m pretty sure I could get away with it.

About 20 minutes from landing, the pilot (first mate, stewardess extraordinaire, whoever) announces that I should be turning off my electronic devices now. Unfortunately, I and the other 80 people listening to their iPods can’t here the announcement.

Do you remember that voice in the movie “Airplane” that says “The white zone is for loading and unloading only?” Well, here at O’Hare he’s saying “The Transportation Safety Administration has raised the security level to ORANGE.” What does this mean? Is this “has raised” meaning today? Is there a new threat I missed out on as I left for the airport at 4:25 this morning? Is this in reference to the liquid ban? And once we figure this out, what the hell does ORANGE mean?

Great, now I’m kinda hungry for an orange. Maybe they’ll serve non-exploding orange juice on the plane.

There’s a plastic owl sitting on top of the jetway just outside this window. I presume it’s to scare away birds. How dumb are birds if there are frightened by a stationary, plastic owl (in daylight no less) but not by the dozens of 100-ton screaming hunks of metal that are taking off or landing during any given minute?

I’m a pretty anti-social air traveler. I’m not into making “single serving friends” as our man Jack would say. I’ll smile and be polite to my fellow seat mates and apologize if I should happen to fall asleep and start snoring, but I’m just not into talking to strangers. I think we should all just shut up and read our complimentary copy of the in-flight magazine.

A corollary to this is that I really don’t like people that talk loudly on their Blackberry’s (no one has just cell phones anymore) while the plane is at the gate. There was an executive for CareerBuilder.com (I think it’s funny one can be employed by trying to get other people employed) four rows ahead of me on my first flight and I’m pretty sure I know several important trade secrets.