Come Fly the Friendly Skies

We’re a long way from trying to look sharp in the airport. At this point, if you don’t look like you’re heading to a slumber party you’ll receive passing marks. There is no domestic airport lounge that can save us either. They are merely overflow pens serving well vodka-Sprites and cat lady Chardonnay. I am considering the purchase of a motorhome like John Madden did and refusing US air travel entirely.

Saturday I sat behind someone scrolling TikTok at full volume while not wearing headphones. It created a Tower of Babel coupled with the credit card application American Airlines insists on pumping while your plane sits delayed on the runway. A cacophony of lunacy.

Once a beloved part of my existence, the airport travel experience has been relegated to clenched teeth, pit stains and inevitable setbacks no matter how buttoned up your program is. Maintaining dignity is the main goal at this point.

I’m aware that I sound like the person Louis CK is talking about in his famous air travel bit, but we’ve reached new heights of idiocracy out there. My complaints usually have little to do with the flying miracle part. That part remains incredible. And like an 8-year-old boy I peer out the window at the impossible: me among the clouds high above our planet. It’s the everything else part that gets me down.

I used to look forward to the airport experience. I loved it. The excitement of a new destination, often with surfboards. The anonymity. It’s all very thrilling. And throughout the journey I’ve always tried to do my part. Be presentable. Keep to myself. Take pride in helping others along the way. And I always managed to maintain optimism and smiles through most setbacks thanks to an omnipresent lukewarm Bloody Mary buzz. But the simplest measures and gestures one can take are all but gone today. Just get through it is now the goal.

It has all become a cattle herd moving from pen to pen and no executive lounge access can save us. Even the Centurion Lounge has a line and the scrambled eggs are sold out.

For what it’s worth, I kept coming back to this piece all day, tweaking it however I could to not sound like a brat. And I don’t think I succeeded. I do sound like one. But anyone who has traveled domestically in the last year or so would likely agree. It’s become excruciating. So I take some comfort in knowing I’m not the only crybaby in town.

At this point: My only advice is get yourself some extremely good headphones, use the porter at the curb, wear trainers with your chinos if you have to and make the Bloody Mary a double. And make it two. That and Winnebago.com. —Travis Ferré