Tuesday, August 15, 2006
I flew this weekend
About a month ago or so, I made plans with some of my photographer friends from photo.net to get together with them in Boston, where three of them live. We all agreed on this past weekend, August 12-15. So, as perfect timing would have it, there was all of that scariness with the carry on baggage last week. I believe that all of the news came out on Thursday, and my BWI to Logan (Boston) flight was on Saturday morning, really early.
So, of course, I decided to be at the airport SUPER early on Saturday. The flight was for 6:45 a.m., and I decided to be in my car at 3:00 a.m., wanting to have parked the car, taken the shuttle and to be in the airport by 4:30. I made it by 4:15. I wished that I had gotten there even earlier than that. The line was already VERY long just to check my luggage. Of course you can't fly "carry-on only" any more unless you want to purchase ALL of your liquid toiletries at your destination and then throw them all out before you return home. Yeah.
It took well over an hour to get through that line ... and then I could barely FIND the end of the security line. But ... the security line at BWI (at about 5:30 a.m.) went faster than I expected based on how LOOOONGGGG it was.
The only things that I missed were my lip balm (I'll need to get a chapstick or something more solid the next time I fly) and my contact lens case (which I always carry with lens solution in it ... but I just wore my glasses instead and put on my contacts when I got there.
Anyway ... I had a GREAT time in Boston ... more on that some other time. Sarah, Linda and Roger are WONDERFUL people and FABULOUS photographers and I laughed a lot, enjoyed spending time with them, and learned quite a bit of photography by watching them.
Then, today I came back from Boston Logan to BWI. My flight was a 6:35 p.m. flight. Because of the tunnel problems that they're having in Boston, Sarah decided that it would be easier for me to take an airport shuttle from the suburbs. We found one that had a VERY reasonable price. We figured that the ride would take an hour, and that the security lines would be long, so to get to the airport by about 3:00, I'd need to be on the 2:00 p.m. shuttle (the shuttles leave every half hour).
I made the 2:00 shuttle, was at the airport by 2:30. The line to check my suitcase took about 20 minutes (that, by the way, was the line for people who DID check in online ... the line for people who did NOT check in online was MUCH shorter ... go figure). Then I was confused ... there was NO ONE in line at security. NO ONE. Is it clear to you that I walked directly up to the security check point, placed my carry-on bags on the belt next to my shoes, and walked right through? It was amazing! I was at the GATE by 3:00.
Then happened the thing that made me decide that I wanted to blog this entire experience. I get SUPER frustrated when I can walk into an airport situation and visually pick out the people in the crowd who will have a problem with security, even when they're on their best behavior.
While I was waiting at the gate, a couple of TSA folks came through the area, looked around at the very many people sitting in my gate area, whispered to each other a bit, and walked away. A few minutes later, two more TSA folks came back with some other airport security folks and a Massachusetts State Trooper or two. They looked at the crowd, pointed to the guy next to me (a middle-eastern looking man in his early-to-mid-twenties) and another man (with very dark skin, who looked more like he was from India than from the Middle East) ... both of them very much dressed like any other American 20-something young men, both of them travelling alone.
They took each of their passports, called in names and ID information on their walkie talkies, talked with the men over in a corner, and all of this with the entire crowd (maybe 75 or 100 people) staring at the whole scene. Finally, after the security group leaving and coming back again for another whole conversation with the men, they left them alone to get on their airplanes.
I guess that I was appalled that they were the only international looking people in the gate area ... that they were dark-skinned, non-American-looking young men travelling alone. That was what they did wrong, I guess. I think that I overheard some that there had been a hassle with the two of them at the security check point and as the State Trooper left, he mentioned that they ought to expect an apology from the TSA folks.
It makes me sad that airline security has come to this ... I have noticed several times in the past years since 9/11 that it's easy to figure out who will be "randomly" chosen for extra measures of security checks. The dark-skinned young men. It's so sad......
Anyway ... back to the gate. I had lots of waiting time. And then my flight was a bit late ... we didn't get ON the plane until after 7:15 and then we were 20th in line for take-off. TWENTIETH!! Yeah - so, after the hour-long drive back from BWI, it was just about 10:30 before I got home. And so went my experience with flying in this newest age of airline security.....
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